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

Bruges, Our Lady of the Pottery Museum 483 3. Anonymous, Triptych of the Adoration of the Magi . Closed: grey-brown and beige marbling. Open: wings: Nativity ; Flight into Egypt , early 16th century Inv. no. O.OTP0049.I Bibliography: Maertens 1939, 96, no. 35. Panels: three boards for the central panel, one each for the wings. The boards are butt-joined. The three panels were slotted into the grooves of the frames prior to painting. Frames: grooved, dovetail joint at the top, double pegging, mitred on inside, cut square on outside. Bottom: through mortise and tenon (tenon on stile), with the front tenon shoulder angled to the rail; a single peg. Two dowels in the stile of one wing were intended to slot, on closing, into two holes in the stile of the other wing. The closing hook is original, the hanging bracket is old but not original. The triptych may be from Brussels, as suggested by the adoption of the dovetail joint , which were found associated several times with frames carrying the Brussels joiners’ mark . While the composition recalls models from the workshop of Pieter Coecke van Aelst, the more archaizing style of the Adoration of the Magi evokes the Brussels production of the time.