The origin and significance of marbling and monochrome paint layers on frames and supports in Netherlandish painting of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

Abstract

Marbling and monochrome paint layers on the reverse of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century panel paintings have received little attention and are often poorly preserved. A link is suggested between painted marbling and oriental marbled paper. Marbled paper was first manufactured in China in the tenth century; it is reasonable to suppose that marbled papers were introduced into Europe long before the fifteenth century and that painters were aware of their use in the Persian and Arab worlds for writing, fine arts and administrative purposes. Similarities in use as well as in techniques support this hypothesis. Marbling on panel painting was intended for decorative effect rather than charged with symbolism. Reverses were also often painted in a monochrome paint layer. The favourite colour in the fourteenth century was red; in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it was black, probably in accordance with fashion at the Burgundian court. In the sixteenth century, the reverses of wings were sometimes painted in other colours. These monochrome paint layers often have texts with gilded letters. They are also often overpainted, for example with portraits of donors, sometimes added at a later date and after the painting had been moved to another location. Even marbling was occasionally overpainted with a coat-of-arms or the figure of a donor. Art historians should be aware of this possibility when assigning dates and attributions.