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

73 Canvas was widely used as a support for paintings in the 15th and 16th centuries. Archival sources attest to this. 1 Excellent studies offer a good understanding of the early development of painting on canvas in our part of Europe. 2 Generally these paintings are executed on a fine canvas, tabby-woven using Z-spun linen thread. These canvases were sized with glue before painting. Other weaves, such as herringbone weave sometimes occur, as in a Last Supper attributed to Marten de Vos (Herentals, Church of St Waudru). 3 These early canvas paintings are called Tüchlein , a term already used by Albrecht Dürer. On the Tüchlein the paint layer is applied using an aqueous binder with an animal glue base. This technique, which dates back to at least the mid-13th century, predominates in the southern Netherlands until c. 1570, around which time painters like Antonis Mor and Frans Floris systematized the use of oil, probably under the influence of Italy where this binder had already been in widespread use for a hundred years. 4 The use of oil on canvas was, however, not unknown in the Netherlands. As early as 1344-1347 archival records mention flags painted in oil on canvas. 5 Initially painting on canvas seems to have been the work of people we would now call “decorators”. In the Guild of St Luke in Bruges painters were divided into “schilders” (painters) and “cleederscrivers” (painters on cloth): the former, the more prestigious, painted on wood, while the latter produced banners, pennants, and painted tapestries and the like on canvas. Before the death of Gerard David, about four in ten Bruges painters painted on canvas, which is not surprising in a city with a thriving linen trade. Between 1509 and 1530, only 4% of Antwerp painters painted on canvas. Still in Bruges, the archives record, in the 15th century, three court cases (1458, 1462 and 1463) concerning the respective fields of action of “schilders” and “cleederscrivers” . The activity of the two was not always well defined since the two categories of craftsmen both used two kinds of support, wood and canvas. In 1458 “cleederscrivers” were denied the right to exhibit their work [for sale]. In 1463 this judgement was CHAPTER III CANVASES AND THEIR AUXILIARY SUPPORTS 1. Wolfthal 1986, 20-21. 2. For further information on painting on canvas to complete this too brief chapter, the reader is referred to the following works: Bosshard 1982, 31-42; Straub 1984, 131-259; Wolfthal 1989; Reynolds 2000. 3. De Jonghe and Vynckier 1980-1981, 81-92. 4. Bosshard 1982, 31-35. 5. Wolfthal 1986, 31.