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

catalogue 512 Brussels, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (RMFAB) 1. Rogier van der Weyden (workshop), Sforza Triptych . Closed: St Jerome ; St George . Open: centre: Crucifixion with the Virgin, St John the Evangelist and Three Donors ; wings: Nativity with St Francis and St Bavo ; St John the Baptist, St Catherine and St Barbara , after 1444 or c. 1460 Inv. no. 2407 Provenance: c. 1500: Giovanni Sforza (?), Pesaro; c. mid-19th century: Zambecari Collection (?). Bologna. Discaert Collection (?), Modena. Wolsey-Moreau Collection, Paris. William Middleton Collection, Brussels. Purchased at the sale of the Middleton Collection in London, Christie’s, Manson and Wood, 26 January 1872, no. 250. Bibliography: Pauwels 1984, 326; Stroo and Syfer-d’Olne 1996, 130-151; Bücken and Steyaert 2013, 110-111. Panels: the central panel consists of two butt-joined boards; each wing of a single board. All panels are still slotted in their grooved frames. On the back of the central panel is a whitish ground covered by black paint, much of which has flaked off. The entire surface has been subsequently covered with a reddish-orange paint layer. Frames: stiles and rails are joined with a half-dovetail joint at the top, through mortise and tenon at the bottom. The joints are mixed cut to the front, and square cut at the back. They are reinforced with two pegs at the top, one at the bottom. The hinges have been replaced. At the lower right edge of the central frame, a compass − the mark of the Brussels guild of joiners − is stamped into the butt-end of the rail. This mark, along with the half-dovetail joint, indicates that the triptych was made in Brussels. The frame has been regilded.