The author is grateful to Kathryn Hebb for her help with this article, as
well as to Ray Marchant for his help and advice.1 For a well-illustrated history of frame styles, see Grimm 1978. An important study of Dutch
frames in the seventeenth century is van Thiel and Kops 1984.
2 National Gallery, London, cats. 569–78. A full account of the technique and construction of
the altarpiece can be found in Bomford et al. 1989, especially 156ff.
3 For a succinct account of the construction of early Italian altarpieces, see the introduction by
Bisacca and Kanter in Newbery, Bisacca, and Kanter 1990:11–30. See also Cämmerer-George
(1966) for illustrations of altarpiece construction.
4 See Lacey 1970:65–80, for a study of the environment in Kings College Chapel, Cambridge,
before the installation of the large panel ofThe Adoration ofthe Magiby Rubens. The consider-
able buffering effect of the stone is assessed, as are the effects oflow-level winter heating,
which contributed to an annual fluctuation of mean levels of RH between 55% and 70%, with
very slow rates of change.
5 For a detailed account of Flemish altarpiece construction, see Verougstraete-Marcq and Van
Schoute 1989:78, where the problems encountered with the original design of the wings of
the Ghent Altarpiece are discussed.
6 Alist of paintings mended and cleaned by George Dowdney in 1731 survives. The linings of
several of the Lely portraits were eighteenth century and had been coated with red paint on
the rev erse, presumably as a moisture barrier. See Laing 1993:107–31, especially n. 18.
7 For example, Helmut Ruhemann’s comment on the “semi-transfer” of the Nativity by Piero
della Francesca, “which did not leave the picture quite flat nor absolutely stable” (Ruhemann
1968:161, n. 2).
8 Stout 1955:figs. 22–24. For fitting panels in frames, see figs. 50, 52, and 53.
9 See Hamilton Kerr Institute 1987, where the work is attributed to the school of Ghirlandaio.
The painting is in a private collection.
10 Plastazote is a low-density, cross-linked, closed-cell polyethylene foam. Evazote is a low-
density, cross-linked, closed-cell ethylene vinyl acetate foam.Notes
Acknowledgments
T F W P 445Figure 16
Pietro Gerini (attrib.), Triptych. The condition
after treatment is shown.