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

ASSEMBLY OF PANEL AND FRAME 57 1. Mortise and tenon joint (fig. 19: 1-10; figs. 20-21) Fig. 20. Mortise and tenon joint with square cut at front and back: the tenon is on the stile, the joint is pegged. The continuation of the moulding of the stile is chiselled into the lower rail. On the reverse, the sharp edges of the frame are “lowered” (planed) to make them less sharp when handling and avoid splinters. Anonymous, Votive Painting with the Intercession of the Virgin and with the Donor, Canon Art van Pyringhen , 1497 (Tongeren, BOL , no. 2 ). The tenon is the protruding portion in the direction of the grain. The shoulders of the tenons, cut with a fine-toothed saw, butt against the corresponding shoulders of the mortise, concealing the top of the mortise opening. Most tenons have two main shoulders, running along the broad face of the tenon and two additional shoulders running along the narrow side of the tenon. Where there is only one additional shoulder, it is on the outer side of the frame. The mortise is the hole into which the tenon is inserted. The solid parts that surround the main cuts of the mortise are called “cheeks” . The solid wood between the top of the mortise and the end of the frame element is referred to as the mortise shoulder (it is this shoulder which distinguishes a closed mortise and tenon joint from a slotted or open mortise and tenon joint). Fig. 21. Mortise and tenon joint with mixed cut at the front, cut square at the back. Tenon on the rail, single peg. Ghent Anonymous, Crucifixion , 1481 (Ghent, CM , no. 1 ).