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

catalogue 638 9. Anonymous, Triptych of the Descent from the Cross. Closed: St John the Baptist ; St John the Evangelist . Open: wings: Donor, Jan van den Tymple ; his Wife , 1567 Inv. no. S/26/O Provenance: epitaph commissioned for the tomb of Jan van den Tymple and his wife in the Church of St Peter in Leuven. The central panel is believed to be from Antwerp. The work is mentioned in 1798 as still being in the Church of St Peter. In the Museum since 1976. Bibliography: Crab 1977, 190. Panels: three vertical boards for the central panel, one board only for each wing (?). The central panel is bevelled. There are saw marks on the back, but also on the front, which was imperfectly planed prior to painting. Frames: central frame rebated, wing frames grooved. All joints are slotted, mitred at the front, cut square on the reverse. The pegs which serve to reinforce the joints on the centre panel are 1 cm wide at the front and 0.5 cm wide at the back. The conical shape of the pegs is not unusual, but is accentuated here by their length, equal to that of the unusual thickness of the frame (12 cm) they have to pass through. An additional peg inserted from the outer side of the frame pins together the mitred parts. Placing a peg in from the side of the central frame is an expedient to strengthen the joint in the case of a heavy frame. The moulding of the central frame is different from that of the wings, suggesting that the wings and the central panel were produced separately. The central frame has an applied outer moulding. On the right wing a closing strip is applied to conceal the gap between the wings when closed as on the wing with St Nicholas of Myra dated 1587 in the same Museum ( Leuven, MM , no. 10 ). A vertical catch on the back of the right frame at the bottom would have hooked, once the triptych was closed, into a base that has now disappeared. Two large mortises on the underside of the central frame testify that this epitaph was posed on a surface, and not suspended. The case of triptychs with wings painted by another hand than the central panel was common practice. In this case, the joinery of the wings was done in the place the work was intended for, to adapt to a central panel acquired elsewhere. The black and gold polychromy has been redone.