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

CHAPTER IV 92 The frame of the St Barbara by Jan van Eyck includes a green flat edge, a moulding and an inclined sill, the latter both with red marbling (fig. 49a). The reverse is decorated with imitation marble and porphyry. Grey-beige marbling decorates the frame in the Virgin at the Fountain , by the same artist in the same museum (fig. 49b). The frame of the Portrait of Margaret van Eyck , 1439 has on its front a beige base colour veined with grey-black (fig. 49c), while the back is decorated with an imitation of red porphyry (fig. 51a). Red marbling with a gilded inner edge can be observed in the second half of the 15th century. We find this polychromy on two replicas of the Virgin and Child , after Rogier van der Weyden (Tongeren, MC , no. 1 and PC , no. 1 ). Fig. 48. Closed wings decorated with marbling, 16th century triptychs. a. Triptych of the Virgin with the Musician Angels (Lyon, Museum of Fine Arts). b. Bruges Anonymous, Triptych of the Holy Trinity with Donatrix and St Justus , 1551 (Bruges, SJH , no. 16) . c. Hieronymus Bosch (follower), Triptych of Job , first quarter 16th century (Bruges, GM , no. 14) Fig. 49. Marbling on Jan van Eyck’s frames. a. St Barbara , 1437 (Antwerp, RMFA , no. 2 ). b. Virgin at the Fountain , 1439 (Antwerp, RMFA , no. 3 ). c. Portrait of Margaret van Eyck , 1439 (Bruges, GM , no. 2 ). a b c a b c