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

catalogue 622 LEUVEN, M-MUSEUM (MM) 1. Brabant Anonymous, Antependium of Christ with the Instruments of the Passion , late 15th century Inv. no. S/2/O Provenance: Leuven, St James’s Church. Placed on deposit in the Museum by the Council of St James’s Church in 1965. Bibliography: Crab 1977, 185; Leuven cat. 1979, 274-276. Panel: three horizontal boards, butt-joined, with dowels visible in the open joins. The boards are 2 cm thick. The panel is bevelled at the back and slotted into the groove of the frame. Two wooden pegs, placed obliquely at the junction of the frame and support at the back to the right, help secure the panel in the frame. The wood is of poor quality, with the lower board containing a large knot. An arrow-shaped mark is cut with a small gouge in the lower board. Frame: grooved; mortise and tenon joints, mixed cut at front and cut square at the back, and with two reinforcing pegs in each corner. The flared shape of the upper rail is related to the painting’s antependium function, in order to insert it better into the front of the altar. Three metal fittings on the upper rail end with rings projecting slightly forward. These rings were probably intended to carry a curtain rod. Similar rings remain on some 17th century frames. The frame retains its original polychromy: black flat band, white ochre baguette, blue cavetto, inside of the moulding in white-ochre. The white-ochre may be a substitute for gilding.