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

catalogue 424 5. Gerard David, Judgement of Cambyses : The Arrest, The Flaying, 1498 (dated in the stone above the judge’s bench in The Arrest ) Inv. no. 0000.GRO0040.I-0041.I Provenance: probably commissioned for the Bruges City Hall. Mentioned in an inventory of the City Hall in 1654; Descamps mentions having seen it there in 1769. Requisitioned by the French in 1794 and sent to Paris. Returned to the Bruges City Hall in 1816. Transferred to the Academy Museum in 1828. Bibliography: De Vos 1982, 121-124; Janssens de Bisthoven 1983, 102-129, pl. lxxxvi-clII . Panels: five ( The Arrest ) and six ( The Flaying ) boards butt-joined with dowels. On the reverse the wood has been worked with an adze; a bevel on the edges facilitates insertion into the frame. In the centre of each panel, a horizontal, semi-circular hollow, ± 10 cm across, has been cut against the grain with a gouge. This recess, which seems original, probably corresponds to the position of a floating cross-piece. The panel is painted in the frame. After the placing of the coating layer, the support of The Arrest appears to have shrunk in width by a centimetre at least. The unpainted edge, which had become apparent, was covered by a paint layer extending onto the bare wood. This would appear to be a late addition. The support of The Flaying includes a mark made by a shallow gouge. At the bottom the frame has been attacked by woodworm with strong traces of rising damp. Frames: they are original, but have been modified. Originally a single frame forming a fixed diptych. The central upright was cut through vertically and added to in order to form separate frames. A lath has been added around each frame. This produces a slight indentation, giving the frames a profile consistent with that of the frames of most of the Memling paintings at the St John’s Hospital, and with certain late 15th century frames in Bruges. Further examination is needed to determine the original nature or not of these external laths. These laths also hide the joints on the sides of the frame. The joints could be either mortise and tenon, cut square at the back (as in various works by Memling at St John’s Hospital) or slotted joints. The outer laths are mitred at the front. The central upright, today sawn in two, originally had a mixed cut at the front and was cut square at the back. It was lap-joined to the rails and then pegged. The black and gold polychromy has been redone; Janssens de Bisthoven mentions this having been done “without respect for the original polychromy”, but with no further details.