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

Brussels, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium 535 10. Master of 1518 (Jan van Dornicke, also known as the Master of the Abbey of Dielegem), Triptych of the Abbey of Dielegem . Closed: Christ and Magdalen . Open: centre: Jesus at the house of Simon the Pharisee ; wings: The Raising of Lazarus ; The Rapture of Mary Magdalen and a Premonstrian abbot as Donor, c. 1518 Inv. no. 329 Provenance: Norbertine Abbey of Dielegem, Brussels. Bibliography: Pauwels 1984, 354. Panels: the central panel contains seven vertical boards, the wings three each. The central panel has been painted in the frame. The reverse was not examined. Frames: covered on the insides of the triptych and the sides with a thick, recent polychromy, concealing the joints. Some old forged nails, perhaps original, strengthen some of the joints. Inside, the moulding of the central frame contains two baguettes, starting from little columns, giving the moulding an architectural dimension unrelated to the architecture of the painted composition. Recent polychromy on the inside of the triptych. The frames of the wings retain on the outside their original polychromy (green marbling, with mitres painted in trompe- l’œil on a square cut).