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

catalogue 686 4. Monogrammed IF (Jacques Franquart? A member of the Francken family?), The Ascent to Calvary , 161[?] (dated in the painting, the last digit is lost; 17th century painting, which recycles a 16th century support) Panel: three vertical boards, butt-joined at oblique angles, reinforced on the reverse with dovetails, some of which are original. The panel is more or less 1 cm thick. The wood has knots; the central join has sapwood along one edge. The reverse has been flattened with a gouge or a scrub plane and bevelled on all four sides. The X-radiograph reveals no underlying paint. Frame: adapted, along with the support, from a larger format. Only one corner still exhibits the original slotted joint, mitred at the front. The other corners are mitred and held together with a spline. The hanging bracket is old and may date from the second decade of the 17th century. The right stile has original suspension holes, telling us that this was the upper rail of the frame in its first presentation. The position of the hanging holes suggests that the original frame was approximately 95 cm wide. This is an old recycling; it is also the oldest case of use of splines (here for restoration), a type of assembly which afterwards remained in use until the 20th century. The 17th century painting is executed on a recycled, and thus older support. Remnants of the original black and gold polychromy.