According to an ordinance issued in Antwerp on 11 December 1617, panel makers were obliged, on pain of a fine of 3 guilders, to mark a panel with their individual mark before they could leave their workshop and be sold to painters. For this document and a comprehensive overview see the website of the Jordaens Van Dyck Panel Paintings Project
As individual panel makers’ marks are seen or noted from previous literature on the reverse of Rubens’s landscapes, information about them will be added to this section of the website.
The first panel maker’s mark encountered was that of:
Michiel Vriendt (d.1637)
Michiel Vriendt was a prolific panel maker who died in 1637. He was a free master in the Guild of Saint Luke by 1615. His biographical timeline by Piet Bakker can be found here.
Two important articles on Michiel Vriendt by previous historians G. Gepts and E. Duverger were translated into English by the Jordaens Van Dyck Panel Paintings Project and published online:
- G. Gepts, ‘The Panel maker Michiel Vriendt, supplier to Rubens’ originally published in Jaarboek Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, 1954-1960, pp. 83-7 as ’Tafereelmaker Michiel Vriendt, leverancier van Rubens’
- Erik Duverger, ‘VRINDT (DE VRIENDT, FRINT, VRIENDT, VRIENT, VRINT), Michiel, frame and panel maker, dealer in paintings’ originally published in Nationaal Biografisch Woordenboek, vol. 7, 1977, cols; 1030-1036 as ’Vrindt (De Vriendt, Frint, Vriendt, Vrient, Vrint), Michiel, lijst-en paneelmaker, koopman in schilderijen’.