RKD STUDIES

On 13 November 1617, the panel and frame makers of the Guild of Saint Luke submitted a petition to the city authorities requesting the formal regulation of their production.¹ On 11 December of the same year, new regulations were adopted to manage the increasing output of panels in response to rising demand, while establishing clear standards for training, master status, quality and identification.² The joiners’ guild adopted these same regulations: although joiners were technically permitted to produce panels and frames, most practitioners preferred membership in the painters’ guild, benefitting from its closer ties to painters and art dealers.³

The new rules stipulated that all panels had to be made of oak, of sound construction, free from fragile or infestation-prone sapwood and without signs of fire or worm damage. To make sure that the panel makers complied with the rules, all panels had to be inspected by a guild official before they could be sold to painters. The products meeting the guild’s quality standards were branded with the castle and hands; those which didn’t were broken. Prior to the inspection, each panel maker was required to strike their personal mark on all panels and frames they produced; a list of 22 registered panel makers and their marks was included for identification. To ensure a proper inspection, panels could not be primed before the guild official’s visit.

Although these rules established clear standards, enforcement was not always strict. Numerous panels with visible defects or flaws, such as fire damage, sapwood and distorted growth with knots survive bearing the personal stamps of panel makers and/or the Antwerp guild brand [1]. Likewise, unmarked panels continued to circulate on the Antwerp market, threatening the authority of the guild. This is also known from archival documents: in 1623 the Guild of Saint Luke sued the art dealers Gaspar Antheunis and Lucas Floquet I for the use and organized production of unmarked panels of poor-quality wood and the employment of the panel makers Guilliam Aertssen (active 1612-1638) and Ambrosius Engelants (active 1625-1627).⁴

Chronologically, the 1617 regulations seem to represent a key milestone in the history of Antwerp panel marking, providing, as Jan Van Damme argued, a terminus post quem for paintings bearing such marks. However, both guild brands and panel makers’ marks predate these regulations. As discussed above, marks indicating the quality of the wood continue a fifteenth- and sixteenth-century practice associated with altarpiece production and appear also sporadically on easel paintings made before 1617. Similarly, there are also examples of marks by panel makers before this became obligatory, suggesting that perhaps the 1617 petition formalized a practice that had already begun organically within Antwerp’s panel-making community.⁵ The unidentified monogram ‘BR’, for example, can be found on paintings dating before 1617, including Abraham Govaerts’ Wooded Landscape with travellers (1612) and Jan Brueghel I and Peter Paul Rubens’ Nymphs Filling the Cornucopia (ca. 1615) [2],⁶ as well as the characteristic mark of Guilliam Gabron (I) (active: 1609-1673), two interlaced ‘G’s, including on Govaerts’ Wooded landscape with men on horseback (1614) [3]. The punch mark of Guilliam Aertssen (active: ​​​1598​-1638), a ‘GA’ monogram within a rhomboid shield, is likewise found on early works by Jan Brueghel I and Otto van Veen [4].⁷ Notably, all the panels with early maker’s marks are of exceptionally high quality, which may explain why they were marked by their producer.

The 1617 regulations also formalized the use of standardized panel sizes, reflecting longstanding workshop practices and the practical needs of large-scale production.⁸ Article 7 required panels to be made according to certain measurements, of which models were kept at the guild office, referred to as dosijn wercken (“works-by-the-dozen”), with names corresponding to coin values such as sessentwintich stuivers, acht stuivers, and stooters. Most branded panels clearly follow a set of standard sizes, although their measurements cannot be connected to their contemporary names.⁹ Panel paintings that have different measurements were probably either made on commission or modified in the workshop. Notably, Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) had such standard panels modified for paintings for private and professional use, such as family portraits and oil sketches.¹⁰ Examples include the panels of A Woman Wearing a Feathered Hat, which was extended on three sides [5],¹¹ and Landscape with milkmaids, cows and duck hunter (c. 1630), composed of 13 planks, of which two were finished panels, inspected and marked by the guild before they were joined [6]. Rubens also commonly used the practical method of having larger primed (standard-sized?) panels cut down to size, rather than commissioning small panels individually, for series of oil sketches made in preparation of complex, large-scale commissions, such as the Medici-series (1620-1625) and the Achilles-series (1630-1635).¹² These examples show that while the guild mandated standard dimensions, practical adjustments were common, balancing regulatory standards with artistic and workshop needs.

1
Panel with sapwood and wormholes, marked 'GA' by Guilliam Aertssen in red crayon (UV-light)

2
BR-monogram of an unidentified Antwerp panel maker

3
Guilliam Gabron’s first punch (1614-1626)

4
Guilliam Aertssen’s first punch (1598-1600), upside down

5
Panel reverse, extended on three sides