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

CANVASES AND THEIR AUXILIARY SUPPORTS 75 We have examined several works on canvas conserved with the auxiliary wood support in their original condition, including the frame. In the St John’s Hospital (Bruges, SJH , no. 17 ) is an oil painting on canvas from the mid-16th century, 17 Anonymous, Jesus with Martha and Mary , formerly in the Church of Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-van Blindekens in the same city (fig. 36a). There the canvas is laid on a backing panel made of oak boards summarily joined by a V-shaped tongue-and-groove. The pegs holding the applied frame to the panel also pass through the canvas and hold it in place; the canvas is not glued to the wood. The construction is reinforced with nails driven through from the back. The canvas is impregnated, with a rigid appearance similar to oilcloth. There is no coloured edge, while a slight continuation of the paint under the top edge of the frame suggests that the work was painted before being mounted in the auxiliary wood support. A Dance of the Virtues (1545) (Mechelen, PWC , no. 1 ) is also preserved in its original state (fig. 36b). The frame, overpainted in black and gold, was originally red. The canvas has been cut with scissors preserving a black border, then glued to a panel in poplar. A frame has been applied around the edge, above the black border. The painting was then done in the frame, as evidenced by the presence of a barbe. The technique that appears to have prevailed in the 15th and 16th centuries was to mount the canvas between a backing panel and an applied frame. The painting was usually done using a temporary frame before mounting in the auxiliary wood support. The painting was held in the temporary frame with nails, pegs or small cords that could be re-tightened as needed. Temporary frames of this type remained in use in the 17th century; we see them represented in painters’ workshops. The tension garlands often found along the edges of the canvases are the result of an earlier stage in the preparation of the canvases, and do not distort the compositions. For linen sheets, the last step in the preparation was that of stretching on tenters, undertaken by specialist by craftsmen called tenterers (“aendoenders”). 18 Once the painting was finished, the canvas was cut along the edges that were sometimes coloured. The cloth was then placed on a backing panel of the same size or slightly larger. The panel was made of roughly assembled elements, sometimes held together only by cross-bars. An applied frame was pegged to the face, with the pegs crossing everything (frame, canvas and panel) and ensuring the cohesion of the assembly. This assembly was at times reinforced with nails driven in from the back. Possibly at times nails were used without pegs. 17. Jozef Vynckier kindly provided us with the results of his dendrochronological study of this panel. 18. Des Marez 1904, 202.