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

CANVASES AND THEIR AUXILIARY SUPPORTS 79 23. Bomford et al. 1986, 39-57. In some cases the frame – or the holes left by the nails or pegs that kept it in place – is out of line with the coloured border. This would appear to point to a mistake by the artist or to a liberty taken by the joiner. In the Entombment of Dirk Bouts, the holes of the pegs that fixed the frame (no longer extant) at the top, are situated in a strip of sky, below the border, which is painted in orange-brown. 23 This means that the frame has been shifted relative to its intended position. In the Triptych of the Descent from the Cross by Pieter Pourbus (Bruges, Groeninge Museum, inv. no. GRO0111.I-0116.I) (fig. 37), the canvas is glued to a structure similar to those of triptychs painted on wood panels. In the wings, the dark brown borders are visible in places, certainly in error. The confusion seems to be related to the difference in width between the central frame and the frames of the wings, which are lighter and narrower, something that the painter failed to take into account when placing the coloured border. Fig. 37. Rare extant example of a canvas marouflaged onto a panel and mounted in a frame soon after painting. In the wings, the coloured surround has been miscalculated by the painter who has forgotten – it seems – to allow for the difference in width between the central frame and the frames of the wings. Pieter Pourbus, Triptych of the Descent from the Cross , 1570 (Bruges, Groeninge Museum).