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

ASSEMBLY OF PANEL AND FRAME 61 18. Van Asperen de Boer et al. 1983, 40-41. 6. End-to-end joint (fig. 19: 32-38; fig. 27) Fig. 27. End-to-end joint: with mortise and tenon, pegged. Anonymous, Triptych of the Adoration of the Magi (Bruges, SJH , no. 18 ). End-to-end joints serve to join pieces of wood end to end. Such joints are common in carpentry constructions where very long pieces of wood are needed, but less so in joinery. In frames and supports we encounter a nibbed scarf joint (fig. 19: 36) to lengthen an upright (Anonymous, Holy Trinity and Saints , 1500, Bruges, Chapel of the Holy Blood). We find a special use of the nibbed scarf joint for assembling the curved parts of the frame to the uprights in the upper altarpiece of the Van Eyck brothers in Ghent (St Bavo’s Cathedral). Exceptionally, a scarf joint is used to extend the board of a panel (Bruges Anonymous, painting called De Beer , Bruges, GM , no. 27 ). End-to-end joints are frequently used, on the other hand, to assemble the curved or contoured parts of a frame to the uprights. In large-scale works, especially those designed to carry the weight of the wings, reinforcing bars frequently served to consolidate the frame or carrying structure. The oldest of these are jointed to the uprights and form part of the joinery of the frame. In this way they helped carry the weight of the wings. In some of the oldest examples, reinforcing bars were “floated”, that is passed freely behind the panel and then jointed and pegged to the frame. Sometimes, when the panel was too thick, it was slightly recessed at the level of the reinforcing bar. The recess on the back of each panel of Judgement of Cambyses by Gerard David (Bruges, GM , no. 5) is probably explained by the existence of bars, which have now disappeared (fig. 8c). In the Portinari Triptych (Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. nos. 3191-3193) the central crossbar lies in a slight recess. The study of the Descent from the Cross by Rogier van der Weyden (Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, inv. no. P02825) has brought to light traces of an elaborate system of reinforcing bars at the back. 18 This construction, anchored only in the frame, was clearly designed to allow the frame to withstand the weight of the wings, which are no longer extant. The lowered centre bar served to counteract the pressure that would have been exerted by the wings on the vertical members of the main frame, so preventing them from pulling away under the weight of the wings. The thought