SUPPORTS 269
rebacklng process the original panel is cut down to a thickness of one eighth inch or
less and this is attached to a new panel, usually three to five ply and with a mid-
dle core made up of a number of strips. In the process of transfer, the wood is en-
tirely removed and the ground may or may not be left.
Wood, history in painting. In western civilizations the use of wood as a paint
support can well be supposed to have reached into the earliest practice of the art.
Painted wood sculptures exist from the time of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, as
early as the IV Dynasty (2900-2750 B.C.), and by the Middle Kingdom (2160-
1788 B.C.) sarcophagi with painted representations are known. Duell draws
attention to the practice of easel painting in the VI dynasty, and by the time of
the mummy portraits, executed largely in £he Fayum during the early centuries of
the Christian era, wood is found as a regular, independent support for pictorial
designs. The kinds employed for this purpose were, according to available data,
sycamore (undoubtedly the sycamore fig [Ficus sycomorus]), cypress, cedar, and
pine. The cedar, cypress, and pine were all foreign importations but are listed by
Lucas as found in other Egyptian objects made of wood. The sycamore fig was
native. Practically nothing survives in the way of painting on wooden supports
from classical times, though a set of parade shields, pine and covered with rep-
resentations, have been found by a Yale University expedition at Dura-Europos
in Syria. They are of Roman origin, somewhat before 256 A.D. Pliny (XXXV, 77)
says that Pamphllos, IV B.C., taught his pupils to paint on panels of boxwood,
and such a support must have been common for the portable pictures of antiquity.
Except for the fine craft of lacquer painting which was generally exercised on
objects of wood, the Far East was not given to its use as a support for painted
designs. A possible exception is the set of the doors, carrying representations of
religious scenes, of the Tamamushi shrine in the Kondo of the Horyuji monastery
at Nara, Japan, dating from the VI or VII century. It is evident, however, that
by the XVI century, and probably for a long time before that, panel painting was
a common practice in India, and Coomaraswamy has brought together a number
of references to show this.
A summary made from the catalogues of the Munich and Vienna museums,
with a few items from the catalogue of the National Gallery, London, shows the
following distribution of woods in the panels of 1100 European paintings from the
time of the early Renaissance:
Beech—German, n.
Cedar—Flemish, I; Italian, 4. (Total, 5)
Chestnut—German, i; Italian, 28. (Total, 29)
Fir—Flemish, 2; German, 4. (Total, 6)
Larch—German, 3.
Linden—Flemish, 3; German, 85; Italian, 8* (Total, 96)
Mahogany—^Flemish, 2.
Oak—English, 2; Flemish, 560; French, 13; German, 80; Italian, 18. (Total, 673)
Olive—Italian, 4.