Painting Frame with Falcon-Hunting and a Courtly Dining Scene

Entry

Surviving gothic picture frames adorned with figural woodcarvings are few in number. Given the profane nature of the carved representations, the frame discussed here can perhaps even be viewed as one of a kind. As far as can be ascertained, no other such frame exists. A number of possible reasons can be raised for this state of affairs. First, comparable frames may very well have existed but were later lost over the centuries. A second possibility is that the frame is an exceptional commission arising from special circumstances. A third possibility, not to be ruled out, is that the frame and figurative woodcarvings – both dating from the sixteenth century⁴ – were separately ‘conceived’ and combined only at a later point in time.

The frame’s left and right stiles bear parallel depictions of a noblemen’s falcon hunt, reading upwards from below on either side: a nobleman on a horse, a mercenary soldier and a jester, alternating with rock formations, grass cover and woodland. Adorning the top rail is a rocky landscape with three views of fortified castles. The left section of this stave has been carved from a separate piece of wood and (re-)inserted in the frame at a somewhat higher angle than the central and right views, thus resulting in a divergent perspective. The unity of the overall scene, material and style nevertheless belies any notion that the two pieces are incongruent. The bottom rail depicts a courtly company in the outdoors. In the centre, a couple sits at a table, while the servant standing between them fills their glasses. On the right, a maidservant approaches with food and drink; on the left, a herald blows a trumpet from which a waving pennant hangs. Unlike the top rail and stiles, the bottom rail has no profiling.

The present frame recalls those of Antwerp retables from the first half of the sixteenth century. In many cases, the concave stiles surrounding the main scenes were filled with small-scale saintly figures.⁵ However, the figures in these retable frames typically appear isolated, whereas the carving on the present frame involves a more or less continuous narrative sequence in which a mountainous landscape forms the unifying element. The elongated, almost dancing figures – particularly the mercenaries and jesters – are characteristic of Antwerp Mannerism in the period 1520-40. The frame’s polychromy has been removed with a caustic, thus resulting in the coarser surface of the wood. The extraordinarily refined quality of the carving has nevertheless been preserved. Stylistically, the figures display a marked similarity to two Antwerp retable groups from the same period: an Adoration of the Magi in Aachen (fig. a) and an Ecce Homo formerly in the Welker collection at Eastbourne.⁶ The agreement with the Aachen Adoration is particularly striking. The figures possess the same slender elegance and the same attention to detail, observable in the careful rendering of the clothing, masonry and background figures. The figure of a jester on the Ecce Homo from the Welker collection has virtually the same pose as his counterpart on the left stile of the Amsterdam frame. The mercenary on the right stile wears a jacket with fashionable slashed sleeves, a common feature on an Antwerp retable groups of the same period.⁷ Leeuwenberg compared the Amsterdam frame’s figural carving to that of The Prodigal Son among the Harlots in the Rijksmuseum (BK-15436), an Antwerp retable group dated somewhat later (c. 1550-60), which De Borchgrave d’Altena previously cited in the same breath with the reliefs in Aachen and London.⁸ While the figures of The Prodigal Son group are of a fuller corporeal type, and the overall carving has been executed with less detail and sharpness, the stylistic connection between these two works further underpins the Amsterdam frame’s Antwerp origin.

When sold in 1965, the Amsterdam frame enclosed a sixteenth-century painted portrait of Charlemagne (fig. b).⁹ This could not have been the frame’s original state: to accommodate this panel, the rabbet had to be enlarged. Moreover, the late-gothic style of the carved frame starkly contrasts with the trompe l’oeil window surrounding the portrait, painted in the Italian Renaissance style.¹⁰ Despite the stylistic agreement between the authentic components of the courtly dining scene and the carved staves of the stiles and top rail, this section of the frame was removed from the bottom rail after the museum’s acquisition. This likely occurred at the behest of Jaap Leeuwenberg, then curator of sculpture, who deemed this element to be non-original. In Leeuwenberg’s view, it was originally situated beneath the frame (hence the notches in the remaining section of the original bottom rail) and only later inserted where a section of the original bottom rail had previously been sawn away.¹¹ Moreover, notches in the top rail and several small filled-in holes in the sides of the stiles were thought to further indicate that the frame also originally had a crowning element and perhaps even sidepieces comparable to those found on sixteenth-century domestic altars set with alabaster reliefs (cf. BK-NM-2918 and BK-BR-515). When positioned below the frame, however, the perspective of the courtly dining scene poorly matches the rest: to properly align the fragment with the frame, one would necessarily have to tilt it, resulting in a bird’s-eye rather than a frontal view. For this reason, a placement within the bottom rail seems more tenable. A likely scenario is that the bottom rail had already been modified prior to 1965 thus leading Leeuwenberg rightly to believe that what he observed was non-original. In early 2017, the frame was restored to its condition before 1966. This nevertheless failed to lead to a conclusive determination as to whether, and if so how, the fragment with the courtly dining scene originally belonged to the frame.¹² As noted above, one cannot rule out the possibility that all of the carved elements originally belonged to another frame or object (furniture piece, mantelpiece), with segments thereof incorporated only later in the concave moulding of the frame.

If indeed the figural elements were specifically made for a frame, then the question remains regarding the nature of the painting for which they were conceived. The iconography suggests a painting with a profane subject, presumably a portrait. In this case, the hunting theme might refer to the portrayed individual’s noble status, the mercenaries to his military power, and the fortified castles to feudal possessions. Jesters were a common artistic motif possessing both a parodic and moralizing function, symbolizing the vanity of an earthly existence while ridiculing human weakness. In light of the frame’s iconographic context, they must likely be interpreted as an admonition addressed to the ruling class, that they constrain their desire for wealth, power and pleasure. If the courtly dining scene was indeed part of the original frame – a warranted conclusion judging by the stylistic agreement – its inclusion might then point in the direction of a wedding portrait. Judging by the remarkably individualistic facial features of the noble horseman on the left-hand stile and the unusual style of his beard (not on, but below the chin), this figure bears a striking resemblance to Frederick I of Oldenburg, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, and from 1523 on, king of Denmark and Norway. Frederick remarried in 1518 following the death of his first wife.¹³ In light of his second marriage to Sophie of Pomerania, the possibility of an association between the Amsterdam frame and this noble prince remains intriguing, even in the absence of tangible proof.

Titia de Haseth Möller, 2024