27/07/2026
What the Wood Remembers.
It’s possible to date a painting by analysing the panel it’s painted on. Not the paint. The wood.
Many Flemish and Northern European works from this era were painted on oak felled in the Baltic, what is now Northern Poland and the Baltic states. Vast forests, centuries old, supplying timber across the continent. Long before it became a painting, that oak was cargo. And the journey it took to reach a workshop in Bruges or Antwerp is, in its own way, a map of Europe at a hinge moment in its history.
Dating the wood.
We’re currently engaging experts to date some of our panels using dendrochronology, tree-ring analysis. Every year a tree grows, it lays down a ring, and the width of that ring reflects the growing conditions of that particular year: wet, dry, warm, cold. Cross-reference enough rings against a master chronology spanning centuries, and you can pinpoint when a tree was felled, often within 10 - 20 years.
It doesn’t tell you the exact year a painting was made, wood was often stored and seasoned before a workshop touched it. But it gives a reliable window. Felled around 1580 or 1590, the painting is very likely from shortly after, certainly before 1600. It’s a quietly remarkable thing: a forensic conversation between a tree and the archive.
To enquire about any of our beautiful paintings, email William at [email protected].
