The Structural Conservation of Panel Paintings

tions with sixteenth-century beech wood resulted in an estimated season-

ing time of two to seven years, corresponding well to what holds true for

oak wood from the same period (Klein and Bauch 1983).

Notwithstanding the problems related to the determination of the tree’s

felling date and the seasoning time of the wood, dendrochronological

analysis can be helpful for art-historical attribution. Dendrochronological

analysis, however, can contribute definitive information only when the

felling date is later than the art-historical attribution. When the felling

date is earlier, either the board was cut from the center of the tree, or it

had been stored for a long time, or the art-historical attribution is too

recent. In all these cases, dendrochronological determination cannot give

a precise solution.

Above all, it is more helpful for the attribution to analyze a group

of panels, rather than a single panel, of a particular workshop. To that end,

the dendrochronological department of the University of Hamburg has

collected more than two thousand analyses of panel paintings since 1968.

The following sections examine the justification for the use of

thedendrochronological method on oak, beech, and conifer panels from

the fifteenth to the seventeenth century.

Oak wood

Oak wood was used nearly exclusively as a painting support from the

fifteenth to the seventeenth century in the northern parts of middle

Europe. Table 3 shows a survey offifteenth- and sixteenth-century

Netherlandish panel paintings; the results are reported elsewhere (Klein

1991, 1993, 1994a, 1994b). The wood was imported exclusively from the

Baltic region by the panel makers.

Dendrochronological

Dating

D A  P P 45

Table 1 Data relating to the determination of storage time for D. Bouts, The Last Supper,1464.

Oil on panel. Saint Pieter’s Church, Louvain, Belgium.

Minimum Median Maximum

Sapwood rings 9 15 36

Felling date 1445 1451 1472

Storage time (years) 19 13 —

Table 2 Data relating to the determination of storage time for J. Daret, Adoration and Visitation,

1434–35. Oil on panel. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz,

Gemäldegalerie (inv. 527, 542).

Minimum Median Maximum

Sapwood rings 9 15 36

Felling date 1418 1424 1445

Storage time (years) 16 10 —

Table 3 Survey offifteenth- and sixteenth-
century panel paintings of
Netherlandish painters and
workshops

Attribution Number of panels

J. van Eyck 23

R. Campin 32

R. van der Weyden 61

P. Christus 19

D. Bouts 35

H. Memling 25

G. David 39

H. Bosch 39