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

CHAPTER IV 96 28. Dülberg 1990, 117. 29. Verougstraete et al. 1981, 307-317. As marblings often looked like porphyry, attempts have been made to explain their presence in reference to this rock (fig. 51a-b). 28 Red porphyry in Antiquity was related to the emperor, and it has been suggested that the antique imperial significance shifted towards a divine significance in Constantine’s time. The Christian was said to first open his eyes on the “divine” porphyry stone of the baptismal font. A relation has also been also suggested between marblings and funeral art, antique or medieval. When Pietro Lorenzetti represented in 1330 an Ecce Homo in a marbled frame, with on the reverse a yellow and red marbling, he supposedly suggested a monument. Porphyry was said to refer to the Passion of Christ, hence to eternity. Marble and stone are solid and permanent; they signify permanence or eternity; this was said to be the reason why they decorated the reverse of many portraits. But marblings were not only red or brown; many were green. They obviously do not always relate either to funeral art, or to baptism or eternity. We are tempted to think that marbling on panel painting was intended more often for decoration than for any symbolic charge. Usually, more than one pattern of marble and stone can be found on a single panel painting. This could imply that the artist’s intention was not to create the illusion of an object in solid marble or stone. Rather, his choice was decorative. The artist’s predominant choice of red and green colours for marbling could perhaps be explained by the symbolism of the colours, but also by the fact that only in those colours could appropriate glazes achieve the transparency resembling the polished marbled papers. 5. Monochrome paint layers Less fascinating, but nevertheless interesting are monochrome paint layers on the exteriors of wings and sometimes also on the insides of wings. The practice of monochrome paint layers is perhaps the oldest existing for reverses or the outside of altarpieces. In addition to limiting viewing of the scene of the central panel to special liturgical moments, wings also had the more pragmatic function of providing protection during transport or against dust. Moreover at a time when the Low Countries were exporting their altarpieces, another advantage appeared: the wings offered space for finishing the work with an inscription, texts, prayers, or coats of arms (fig. 52e-f). Wings initially covered with a single colour are also often overpainted with donors, or the Annunciation or another religious scene (fig. 52d). This explains the existence in wings of a black underlayer observed on several occasions. 29 Although sometimes the painter choose another colour than black, the black paint layer offered a perfect support for a prayer painted in gold letters.