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

MATERIALS AND MEN 5 23. Des Marez 1904, 479-480. 24. Fraiture and Dubois 2011, 314. 25. Van Damme 1990. 26. Bücken and Steyaert 2013, 232-233. 27. De Coo 1978, 35-40. joiners, because he feared being obliged to use the same wood (the “onderwoud” or second grade timber) and the same glue as the “boutmakers” (manufacturers of crossbow bolts), who since time immemorial had been part of the joiners’ guild. Guillaume was permitted to remain with the turners, but with a prohibition on taking apprentices. The “boutmakers” were later transferred to the turners’ guild. 23 Around 1500 Antwerp became the most important production centre of panels for paintings in the Southern Netherlands. In the early 17th century a new craft of panel makers (“tafereelmakers”) was created within the Antwerp Guild of St Luke, distinguished from the traditional joiners, but with almost identical regulations from the city authorities. The regulations mention standardized formats for panels and the distribution of tasks in the workshop. 24 The city’s brand mark (a castle and a pair of hands) was applied to the back of the panels on approval of the construction by the dean of the guild. The mark of the panel maker was eventually added. Panel makers and their respective marks are recorded in a document dated 1617. 25 Turners also occasionally produced the supports for paintings, as already mentioned. Circular supports usually had a diameter equal to the width of a board. But they could measure up to 1.5 m in diameter, 26 assembled from several boards. In the Mayer van den Bergh Museum in Antwerp is a circular support produced on a lathe: Hans Memling (workshop), Virgin and Child , second half 15th century (Antwerp, MVB , no. 3 ). To produce a moulded circular frame, a lathe was essential, and probably all circular frames were either cut into or applied onto the support. In any event, the only circular frames we have seen have been cut into the wood of the support. The Twelve Flemish Proverbs by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in the same Museum are painted on supports of this type. The study by Josef De Coo shows that these are plates that the texts cite as “tweelf afbeeldingen op teljoren gedaen by den Ouden Breugel” (twelve depictions on plates done by Bruegel the Elder). These plates were surrounded by a moulded frame, cut into the wood of the support. This frame was removed for mounting in the panel. 27 Widely used at the time, series of painted plates or isolated examples are conserved in different places like Alkmaar (Stedelijk Museum), Nürnberg (Germanisches Nationalmuseum), Berlin-Charlottenburg (Kunstgewerbemuseum - Staatliche Museum zu Berlin) and Antwerp (Zilvermuseum Sterckxhof). Although some of them show signs of use and in particular knife incisions, one may ask whether the decorated wood circles did not serve rather as ceremonial utensils (like for example the paintings with the head of John the Baptist in a charger) while other plates in bare wood were used for food. In Bruges, ordinances regulated the activities of turners: they were allowed to make simple furniture, but were not permitted to use oak. Nor could they employ