harmful rigid lattices and frameworks were still made during the nine-
teenth century by joiners and restorers.
Evidently, Hacquin’s movable system of cradling became known
in Germany and Austria through his articles in art journals. Lucanus and
Köster were the first to describe a movable cradle system (Lucanus
1832:117; Köster 1828:14).
The quality of the wood species used for the slats along and
across the grain may be significant. Even in the Wolters Report, however,
there was no consensus. Some laboratories used softwood cradles, while
others preferred cradle slats of the same wood species as the original sup-
port. It was proposed that the slats glued along the wood grain should
show growth-ring structure in a perpendicular position with respect to the
support (Wolters 1952:12–13).
In some collections, all or most of the panel paintings were sys-
tematically cradled. According to H. Dietrich of the Hochschule für
Angewandte Kunst in Vienna, oral legend reports that between 1825 and
1835, most of the panel paintings in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in
Vienna were treated, thinned, flattened, and cradled (Dietrich 1994).
Apparently, during the nineteenth century there was no discussion about
the quality of cradling; it was a common and unquestioned practice.Cradling in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
Apositive attitude toward cradling was so pervasive that the treatment
was even recommended by the painter and restorer Aloys Hauser as a pre-
ventive measure for newwooden panel supports used by contemporary
painters (Hauser 1885:6). At the beginning of the twentieth century,
cradling still had not been discussed in a negative light. If paintings were
damaged, the cause was usually attributed to a technically incorrect cradle.
Until the middle of the twentieth century, flat cradles were still in use
(Figs. 15, 16). In the 1930s cradle systems with huge slats positioned
on their sides were preferred (Zillich 1991:63). At that time the first
discussions about cradling can be found in the literature. Painter-restorers
like Doerner had no doubt about the necessity ofcradling (DoernerH P P C A, G, S 217Figure 15
Hans Müelich, Portrait of Pankraz von Freyberg,
- Rev erse. Oil on panel. Kunsthalle
Karlsruhe (inv. 2477; in the collection since
1961). A rather delicate treatment that must
have been done before 1961 is shown. The
panel was thinned to 1 mm, then glued onto a
particleboard as an auxiliary support. To hide
the particleboard, a counterveneer was glued
over it. Finally, a very fine wooden cradle
was mounted.