RMA-project: What Boards from the Same Tree in 17th-century Panels Tell Us about Artists’ Workshop Practice

Dendrochronological examinations of panel paintings have provided art historians with valuable insights regarding the dating, materials and manufacture of panels, especially when documentary sources are scarce. However, while dendrochronologists frequently identify panels with boards that derive from the same tree, little research has explored the implications of this finding in an art historical context. For my thesis, I combined research into historical sources, such as artists’ inventories, with a meta-analysis of the research data collected by dendrochronologist Peter Klein, to learn more about what the occurrence of boards from the same tree in panel paintings from the seventeenth-century Low Countries can tell us about how painters acquired and used panels in their workshops. Inventories and contemporary depictions of artists’ studios show that painters kept a stock of panels in their studios, and the number of panels varied depending on the workshop’s size, specialization and financial status. The identification of boards from the same tree in seventeenth-century panels can help reconstruct the relationship between individual artworks, the workshop’s rate of production, and supply networks between different artists and panel makers. Integrating approaches from technical and digital art history can therefore assist with answering broader questions about workshop practice.

Kirsten Weterings

Student Research Master, Art History

Figure 1. This studio depiction by David Ryckaert shows various unpainted panels around the workshop, suggesting that the painter kept several in stock. David Ryckaert (III), Painter’s workshop with color grinder and posing model, 1638, oil on panel, 59 x 95 cm, Louvre Museum (Paris). Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Figure 2. A visual comparison of the tree ring series of the panel of Allegory of Transcience (top right), attributed to Willem van Mieris, and the panel of Escaped Bird: Allegory of Chastity (bottom right), by Frans van Mieris (I), strongly suggests the two boards derive from the same tree.