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

catalogue 544 13. Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Adoration of the Magi , c. 1525 (?) (central panel of a triptych of which the wings are lost) Inv. no. 386 Provenance: gift of King William I of the Netherlands in 1819. Bibliography: Pauwels 1984, 62. Panel: three boards; painted in the frame (barbe and unpainted border), the panel has shifted in the frame after the placing of the ground and before the application of the paint layer, which continues beyond the ground onto the naked wood of the edge. Frame: originally grooved; the groove remains only in the top rail; converted on the other sides into a rebated frame, to permit extraction of the panel during treatment. Slotted joints, mitred at front, cut square on reverse. Originally all four frame elements had the same profile. A thick layer of mastic has been applied to the bottom rail to give it an inclined sill. The rest of the frame has been given a new stucco coating (the result causes one to doubt prima facie the originality of the frame). The upper part of the curved upper rail has an original piece added at the top and hanging/holding holes. The locations of the hinges, although camouflaged, remain visible.