Scrolled Gables of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries in the Low Countries

Henry-Russell Hitchcock suggested that scrolled gables were a new element in the Low Countries introduced by Renaissance architects in the 1520s. It seems more likely, however, that the scrolled gable derived from Late Gothic Netherlandish prototypes, because of a later date for a facade that Hitchcock considered to be the oldest extant scrolled gable in the Low Countries; and because scrolled gables of a provincial character, which were not mentioned in Hitchcock’s study, show more resemblance to Late Gothic prototypes.