Frames and supports in 15th and 16th-century Southern Netherlandish painting

CHAPTER II 42 up opening the join. This system was certainly not applied everywhere. When sawn, radially-cut or semi-radially cut boards are often of regular thickness. With the sapwood removed in almost every case, it would not always have been possible to recognize the original position of the board in the tree. This general arrangement of the boards is applied for example in the Bladelin Altarpiece of Rogier van der Weyden 1 (Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie, cat. no. 535), and – from outside the time scope of this book – Rubens’s Erection of the Cross (Antwerp, Cathedral of Our Lady). 1. Klein 1986, 232. Fig. 12. In this reverse of the painting of Pieter Claeissens the Younger, Carrying of the Cross , 1616 (Bruges, SJH , no. 21 ), the second join from the top is soft side to soft side. From thereon out, the other boards are placed with their soft side against the hard side of the previous board, symmetrically with respect to the two central boards. This gives a stepped effect, with the soft side in each case thicker than the hard side. The joiners making the panels saw no need to plane flat the back of such a panel. In certain cases, however, the reverses of panels were planed flat at a later date by restorers in order to consolidate the joins with buttons.