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

catalogue 656 NAMUR, PROVINCIAL MUSEUM OF ANCIENT ARTS (PMAA) 1. Anonymous, two fragments of wings known as The Walcourt Annunciation and Visitation. Closed: remains of red paint, pre-eyckian Inv. no. 36 Provenance: discovered in 1886 in the Collegiate Church of Walcourt where they served as doors for a chest of drawers. Entrusted to the Museum shortly, they were restored and stored until treated in 1958 at the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA). Since then exhibited in the Museum. Bibliography: Colman 1960, 35-54; Stroo 2009, 310-357. Pascale Fraiture, report on dendrochronology, 2006 (KIK-IRPA, restoration file nos. 1958.00007 and 1958.00008): boards from the same oak, native to the Rhine-Meuse valleys. The latest growth ring dates from 1398. Panels and frames: each panel is amputated by about a third of its width, judging from the painted architectural canopy that marks the centre of the composition, and based on the joinery of the reverse, where one can reconstruct the supporting structure that was originally applied to each of the panels. Each panel consisted of five boards, four of which remain (one of them is heavily cut). These are butt-joined with dowels (3-4 dowels per join). Two dowels are visible in the slightly open join of the Visitation. The supporting structure applied to the reverse consisted of a frame, and one vertical and two horizontal cross-bars. The inner cross-bars are assembled between themselves and to the frame with half-lap joints, mitred back to the baguette moulding with the end laps passing under the frame to form, with the panel, de facto mortise and tenon joints. The elements of the outer frame are assembled with half-lap mitred joints. The circular pegs securing these joints have a diameter of 0.6 cm and do not pass through the panel, representing an initial pegging of the frame before its application to the panel. The frame is then pegged to the panel by means of large rectangular pegs measuring 1.5 cm across. The peg heads are covered on the front of the panels with pieces of parchment laid in diamond pattern. This lay-out is intended to limit the effects of the play of the wood on the parchment: if the maximum traction is effected on the outer edges of a piece glued to the wood, and is proportional to its width, it is clear that on a diamond this traction is greatest at the horizontally facing angles and decreases to the top and bottom points. This work demonstrates careful reflection and a careful craftsmanship. Parchment, being a collagenous substance, adhered particularly well; certain small pieces of parchment have remained with the paint covering them, while the surrounding paintwork has disappeared. The parchment is used in strips to cover the joints and also a crack in the panel of the Annunciation. Here, however, the traction produced by the wood on the parchment has led to its falling off and to gaps in the paintwork.