Witz, was considered necessary to treat drastic problems caused by climate
changes in the new wing of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in
Nuremberg. The particular character of the support was determined by
the wooden panel, which consisted of boards of different wood types
(Reimold 1972:825–27). In general, it seems that chipboards were the pre-
ferred type of all the new rigid supports after 1950.Partial transfer to auxiliary supports
In the German-speaking countries, partial transfer was practiced much
more often than total transfer of wooden panel paintings. Partial transfer
began no later than the middle of the nineteenth century. In this technique
the thinned original panel was reinforced by being glued to another
wooden panel. Welsch recommended gluing the original panel, whenever
it had become too thin, to a very old oak board (Welsch 1834:66). The
original panel should not be thicker than 3–6 mm (Hampel 1846:23).
Although the treatment dates are unknown for most of the paint-
ings that received partial transfers, the technique seems to be one of the
early ones. To repair the Last Supperof Hans Holbein the Younger in the
Kunstmuseum Basel, the restorer Andreas Eigner removed a spruce board
about 3 cm thick (Vogelsang 1985:142). The Wallraf-Richartz-Museum
owns large panel paintings (inv. 137, 143 3 46.8 cm; inv. 146, 93 3 68 cm)
reinforced by adhered oak boards (Zehnder 1990:347, 476). In one case it is
possible to date the treatment to before 1925. Other treatments of this
type were presumably done in the same museum in the nineteenth cen-
tury (Zehnder 1990:124). The same treatments can be found in other gal-
leries, such as the Alte Pinakothek (Goldberg and Scheffler 1971). It is
possible that some of these paintings with adhered auxiliary wooden pan-
els were cradled later on. But the auxiliary wooden panel support was also
cradled at the same time. This treatment is documented on Gothic panel
paintings in the Alte Pinakothek (Goldberg and Scheffler 1971:88–89).
Other examples were performed at the Schweizerisches Institut für
Kunstwissenschaft on a Gothic panel painting (101 3 92 cm) (SIK 1961). In
1989 the same situation was seen in a painting measuring 48 3 64 cm. The
original, 5 mm thick support was glued to a wooden sheet 2–3 mm thick
that had been cradled (SIK 1989).
Partial transfer of wooden panels was sometimes done with the
grain of the reinforcement positioned across the original support and
sometimes with an adhered counterveneer sheet on the reverse. This type
of treatment has probably not been performed since the middle of the
nineteenth century, but the technique itself is an old one and is still used
in furniture manufacturing. The painting, with its thinned original
wooden board, was understood as a veneer sheet. The new auxiliary panel
was glued across the grain of the original support, having the effect of a
crossbanding. A third, thinner wooden sheet (of the same thickness as the
original support) was glued across the grain of the auxiliary panel. Thus,
this layer’s grain was parallel to that of the original support, so that the
effect of a counterveneer was created.
This technique for reinforcing diminished wooden supports has
been mentioned only once, but it was frequently used (von Frimmel
1904:140). Many panel painting support treatments executed by the restorer
Andreas Eigner (1801–70) were executed with this reinforcing technique,
which seemed to be a specialty of Eigner or, rather, of the joiner who222 Schiessl