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

catalogue 636 8. Frans Provoost, The Meeting of Jesus and Veronica , 1565 (signed and dated in the lower right corner of the painting) Inv. no. S/12/P Provenance: Leuven, Groot Begijnhof Church. In the Museum since 1976. Bibliography: Leuven cat. 1970, 142; Crab 1977, 270. Panel: three horizontal boards; many cracks due to cradling. Frame: rebated. Mitred at the front. The reverse is hidden by restorations. The joints are reinforced with two pegs, one on either side of the mitre. We cannot inspect the outer edges of the joints because the frame is encased in an outer frame, the sides of which are flared. This “box” (or “tray”) is nailed to the outer edges of the rails of the main frame. This type of framing would become common in the 17th century (Monballieu 1966, 52-55; Van Thiel and De Bruyn Kops, 1984; Ibid ., 1995). The original polychromy had a discontinuous gilded floral pattern on a black background on the flat band of the frame; it is still partially exposed. Elsewhere the original polychromy has been overpainted.