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

CHAPTER II 58 The tenon may be a “through tenon” (fig. 22). Where it does not protrude through to the other side, it is known as a “stub tenon”. Fig. 22. Through tenon on the rail, pegged. The groove continues into the tenon, and the resulting gap on the outside of the frame is plugged with a piece of wood. The holes left by the woodworming reveal the lip of the panel inserted into the groove of the frame. Alincbroot Triptych (Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado). 2. Dovetail joint (fig. 19: 11-13; fig. 23) Fig. 23. Half-dovetail joint. Upper narrow sides of closed triptych wings. The dovetail is flared towards the closed surface of the triptych, where the frame is more solid (in the open triptych, the moulding reduces the thickness of the wood of the frame towards the painting). Goossen van der Weyden (attributed to), Triptych of the Virgin and Child (Tournai, MFA , no. 2 ). The protruding part of one member and the corresponding hole in the other are trapezoidal in shape. More strictly, one should speak here of a half-dovetail. In fact the oblique cut is made only at the back of the frame, as an oblique cut on the front side of the frame is made impossible by the thinning of the wood resulting from the moulding. This joint has been used in particular from the 15th century to the present day for so-called “box joints”, like of the boards forming the box of a carved altarpiece or the sides of drawers. In this case the joint consists of a succession of several dovetails. Where it is the elements of a frame that are joined, we find a single dovetail. This joint is particularly suitable for maintaining the members of a structure at right angles. We can perhaps see in the adoption of the dovetail for painting frames in the