The collection includes a late fifteenth-century panel depicting a man at prayer, flanked by a saintly bishop. Measuring just 26.6 by 19.5 centimetres, the small painting was recently conserved by Sven Van Dorst in The Phoebus Foundation’s conservation studio.

The work is remarkable for both its quality and its relatively ‘original’ state. The original integral frame is still intact, while the marbling on the reverse of the panel has also survived the passage of time.

During conservation, the painting was stabilised and visually disruptive later interventions were removed, allowing the work to be fully appreciated once more. The accompanying research also shed new light on the original context for which the work was created.

Panel and frame form a single unit, as was customary for this type of work in the fifteenth century. The oak panel slots into a groove in the frame profile. Once assembled, the entire piece was covered with a pale ground layer of chalk and animal glue. The frame was then gilded, before the central scene was painted.

This presented an additional challenge during treatment, as a large vertical split ran through the panel, directly across the bishop’s face. Nevertheless, specialist Sara Mateu was able to stabilise and rejoin the split without removing the frame.

Alongside the structural issues, the painting was also covered with several layers of discoloured varnish. Under ultraviolet light, these showed a green fluorescence characteristic of natural resins. The varnish layers gave the painting a yellowed, darkened appearance and made the subtle modelling of the figures particularly difficult to read.

After extensive testing, the varnish layers could be carefully removed in a controlled manner. Beneath the first layer, residues of old varnish and dirt remained, most of which could be removed during a second, more targeted cleaning. This allowed the original colours and the refined modelling of the paint layer to come to the fore once more.

A significant part of the conservation treatment, however, focused on the frame. Its appearance had been substantially altered in the nineteenth century. On the front, a thick new ground layer had been applied over the original finish and subsequently gilded. This had largely obscured the finer original profile, giving the frame a much heavier appearance. The sides had been covered with yellow and ochre overpaint. Finally, the entire object had been placed in a larger, richly decorated gilt frame.

To determine what had survived beneath these later finishes, small test windows were opened. The results were promising: traces of the original finish and gilding were still preserved beneath the nineteenth-century ground and gilding. After consultation with other conservators, it was therefore decided to carefully remove the later layers.

This was done step by step. First, the modern gilding was scraped away. A gel was then used to temporarily soften the thick white ground layer, which was carefully thinned and removed using a scalpel and wooden tools. The process had to be repeated several times. Gradually, the much finer original profile of the frame re-emerged, together with traces of the earlier gilding.

The sides of the frame yielded similar results. Beneath two layers of yellow paint, an earlier, dark finish was found to be surprisingly well preserved. The later overpaint could be carefully removed in a controlled manner, after which the fragile original paint was consolidated.

The reverse of the panel, with its decorative marbling set within a dark border, also received attention. The surface was covered with layers of dirt, historical labels and remnants of blue paper. To consolidate the loose paint flakes, the old labels had to be carefully removed using compresses. Once the flakes had been secured, the reverse was cleaned, revealing a rich palette of colours beneath the layers of dirt.

Once the structural work and cleaning were complete, treatment of the object could be finalised. The split in the panel was filled, visually disruptive losses in the paint layer were reintegrated, and an even layer of varnish was applied. No new varnish was applied to the painted reverse, as remnants of the old varnish still provided sufficient saturation to the paint layer.

The frame was also retouched with restraint. The aim was not to make it look new again, but to restore the legibility of the surviving fifteenth-century finish. Finally, the entire object was given a protective layer of wax.

Finally, the conservation treatment also provided important clues about the panel’s original function. The man at prayer and his patron saint are clearly looking towards something beyond the picture plane. Small holes in the original frame also suggest that it was once fitted with hinges and a fastening. The panel was therefore not originally intended as a standalone work, but formed part of a larger devotional ensemble.

A search through image databases subsequently led to a strikingly similar painting at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam: a small panel depicting the Virgin and Child in a landscape. The painted surfaces of both works are almost identical in size, while the hilly landscapes behind the figures show particularly striking similarities.

In 2023, the two paintings were examined side by side for the first time in at least a century and a half. The examination revealed that the panels probably once formed part of a devotional triptych consisting of three panels of equal size. The Virgin and Child would have formed the central panel, with the male donor and his patron saint on the left and, possibly, a now-lost panel depicting a female donor on the right. The three panels could be folded together to form a compact devotional object, roughly the size of a book.