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

CARVED AND PAINTED DECORATION 85 Renaissance decoration is developed on cornices and other elements of the frame. We have examples in the Damhouder Triptych of Pieter Pourbus, 1574 (Bruges, Church of Our Lady). Renaissance decoration invades the entire frame in Jan Provoost’s Last Judgement , 1525 (Bruges, Groeninge Museum, inv. no. 0000.GRO0117.I). The fact that this carved decoration comes from Bruges is perhaps no coincidence, since we know that in this city woodcarvers worked in joiners’ shops (see “Woodworkers and guilds ” in Chapter I). B. Polychromy The term “polychromy” covers mainly the colours and decorations painted onto a frame (fig. 41). In practice the borderline between the painting on the panel and on the frame is not easy to establish. 15th-century artists, masters of the trompe-l’œil , often carry over the subject of the painting onto the frame. Conversely, painters sometimes continue the frame into the painting, via painted mouldings and architecture. Fig. 41. a. Decoration painted onto a frame. Brussels Anonymous (follower of Rogier van der Weyden), Triptych of the Virgin and Child , second half 15th century (Brussels, PWC , no. 1 ). b. The frame continues into the painting. Master of 1499, Diptych of the Virgin in the Church and Abbot Christiaan de Hondt , 1499 (Antwerp, RMFA , no. 7 ). Fig. 42. Painted joins and mitres. a. Jan van Eyck, St Barbara , 1437 (Antwerp, RMFA , no. 2 ). b. Hans Memling, Jan Floreins Triptych , 1479 ( Bruges, SJH , no. 2 ). c. Anonymous, wings with St Wilgefortis and St John the Baptist , early 16th century (Bruges, SJH , no. 13 ). More modestly, the painters sometimes paint joins and mitres in the corners of the frames to align the perspective of the latter with that of the central scene (fig. 42). a b a b c