Examples of Writing in Stained Glass

Shown below is a selection of panels showing details of the writing, placed in date order. Looking at examples in our collection, it seems that early inscriptions on glass are commonly white writing on a black background. The area would have been completely painted with black enamel, then the writing would have been scraped out using something like a sharp stick.

By the early 1300s, the writing is black on a white background. The skill of working with black enamels has improved greatly, and shading and stippling techniques make the images far more painterly. The writing continues to become more refined and ornamental.

Beatrix van Valkenburg panel and a detail of the writing.

Beatrix van Valkenburg

English, late 13^th century

Sacrifice of Isaac panel and a detail of the writing.

Sacrifice of lsaac

German, 1278, from the church of St.Thomas, Strasburgh

The Visitation panel and a detail of the writing.

The Visitation

German, late 14^th century

Annunciation panel and a detail of the writing.

Annunciation of the Virgin

English, Hampton Court, 1400-1430

Judgement of Solomon panel and a detail of the writing.

Judgement of Solomon

German, Cologne, early 15^th century

Solomon and the Queen of Sheba panel and a detail of the writing.

Solomon and the Queen of Sheba

German, Cologne, early 15^th century

St Barbara panel and a detail of the writing.

St Barbara

German, Rhineland, early 15^th Century

Arms within Garter of Sir Henry Fitzhugh panel and a detail of the writing.

Arms within Garter of Sir Henry Fitzhugh

English, early 15^th century

Crucifixion panel and a detail of the writing.

Crucifixion

English, 1450-1500

St John the Evangelist and a kneeling Soldier panel and a detail of the writing.

St John the Evangelist and a kneeling Soldier

Probably from the church of St Peter Mancroft, Norwich, England, 15^th century

St Mary Magdalen panel and a detail of the writing.

St Mary Magdalen

English, 15^th century

St Nicholas Preventing an Execution panel and a detail of the writing.

St Nicholas Preventing an Execution

South Netherlandish, 1509-1513

St Francis panel and a detail of the writing.

St Francis

Swiss, 1671

The decoration on Greek vases from Athens between the 6^th and 4^th centuries BC show a parallel to the white on black then black on white writing in stained glass, but in reverse. The decoration begins with black figure decoration, where the leather hard pot has the images painted on with a slip (runny clay mix) which, when fired in a reducing kiln, causes the slipped areas to turn black – black figures on a red background. Around 530BC, the technique changes with the whole pot being coated with slip, then the images are picked out by scrapping away the slip resulting in red figures on a black background. More sutle details could then be added with lines or dilute washes of glaze applied with a brush.

Red and Black Figure Greek Vases

Other famous writing on glass includes Robert Burn’s verse written on a pane in the globe Tavern, Dumfries:

Robert Burn’s verse written on a pane in the Globe Tavern, Dumfries

Gin a body meet a body

Coming through the grain.

Gin a body kiss a body

The thing’s a body’s ain.

[Image from: http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/56181000/jpg/_56181517_burns_window_etching.jpg}

A Digital Restoration of the Birth of the Virgin Panel

window before conservation

The Digitally Restored Window

Our approach to the conservation treatment of the stained glass panels from Boppard is one of minimum intervention. There are many reasons for this:

• As conservators we adhere to international guidelines provided by the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, the Institute of Conservation (Icon), E.C.C.O. professional guidelines and ICOMOS Venice Charter.
• Because we are dealing with three monumental windows with a total of 34 individual panels we have to apply the same level of treatment to every one of them: some may be in a condition where restoration would be appropriate, others may not be.
• We have to consider time and cost.

Very early on in our blog we discussed the panels depicting the Birth of the Virgin and the issues surrounding restoration and authenticity. So we decided that our best option was to not interfere with the actual stained glass panel (other than cleaning it) and to try out a virtual restoration instead. This would allow us to recreate an image of how the scene might have looked without being limited by professional guidelines and time factors and most importantly we would not be interfering with the authenticity of the artwork.
With a virtual restoration using digital technology you can explore different levels of intervention and present different restoration options depending on and directed by the condition that the original glass is in.
Our approach with this panel was to virtually restore the glass to a level that could – in theory – be achieved in reality. So we removed all repair leads, re-bonded broken glass, retouched lost paint, removed some of the unsightly restorations where we could identify with a degree of certainty what would have been there before, but left restorations that have replaced original glass with no trace of what was there before.

The most obvious area of virtual repair was the extensive damage to the magnificent red bed cover. John took some detailed photos of the area and digitally enhanced them so that the almost invisible floral pattern came to light. The outlines of these were traced onto transparent paper which was scanned back onto the computer and used as a guide layer to recreate the pattern.
The virtual restoration allows us to recreate the detailed patterns in the fabric of the bed spread as it might have originally been seen. This is immensely exciting as it gives us a sense of how much detail the Boppard panels must have once contained!

Bed Sheet Pre-Restoration

The damaged area “virtually” restored

Trace of the Bed sheet

Trace of the bed sheet folds

The image on the left is the trace created of the fabric pattern painted on the back of the glass. The image on the right shows the folds of the cloth painted on the front of the glass. (Mary’s foot was included to allow accurate positioning as an overlay!)
One of the most amazing outcomes of all of this work trying to recreate an image of what the original stained glass scene would have looked like is that we have to conclude that the bed spread was cut from one piece of glass!

Detail of the Bed Sheet

The possible shape of the bed sheet in the original window

This is a very daring shape to cut, requires great skill and would have been predestined to break at the narrow point in the centre. We almost cannot believe that they would have done this, using the most expensive red glass, decorated front and back, but there is no evidence of an original lead line to separate the two sections.

Another key area we looked at is the head of baby Mary and the section of blue curtain just above her head.

Mary’s Head Before Restoration

virtual restoration of Mary’s Head

This area must have been severely damaged – both the head as well as the light blue insertion above Mary’s head are restorations from 1871.
There is nothing original left of the head and if we replaced it, we would be guessing wildly, so in some ways the 1871 restoration is as authentic as it will ever be. So we decided to give Mary a virtual face clean and leave it at that! (This, by the way, is something we cannot do on the original because the paint is not fired and will come off very easily…)
The restoration insertion in the blue patterned curtain above her head is different: so much original glass with curtain pattern remains in the surrounding area and it allows us to make a pretty accurate guess about how this would have originally appeared. We therefore decided to carry out a more sympathetic repair in our virtual restoration.
John reconstructed the area by copying and pasting sections of the original curtain area and blending it into the background along with some digital painting.

So much for a virtual restoration.

This is what the real stained glass panel looks like after careful cleaning and stabilisation.

The Cleaned Birth of Mary Window

Facts about glass: Assembling a stained-glass panel

Once all the pieces of glass have been cut to shape, painted according to the design, and fired, they are finally ready to be assembled using lead.

Megan assembling a panel

The method used to assemble a stained-glass panel nowadays has changed remarkably little from mediaeval times. According to Theophilus, a 12^th century monk, in his treatise “The Divers Arts”; a flat smooth wooden board large enough to take the window panel would have been whitewashed (using powdered chalk and water) onto which the design for the window would be drawn.

When paper first started to be produced it was very expensive and so it was much cheaper, if it was a one-off, to lay out the design for the panel on an assembly table, build the panel on top of it, then, just whitewash the table ready for the next panel. This also made it easier if there were repeated design elements in the panels, such as borders or canopies, for example, as these could be left and only the sections that were different needed to be whitewashed and redrawn. By the 14^th century, in Italy at least, there is documentary evidence that paper was being used as standard, as Cennino Cennini writes in his manuscript Il Libro dell’ Arte:

“you will take as many sheets of paper glued together as you need for your windows; and you will draw your figure first with charcoal, then fix it with ink, with your figure completely shaded, exactly as you draw on panel. Then your glass master takes this drawing, and spreads it out on a large flat bench or table; and proceeds to cut his glasses”

Profile of a lead came

The lead strips used to connect the separate pieces of glass in the panel are called “cames”. The same process of using H-shaped rods of lead has been used since Roman times, and the Latin name for the rods of lead was calamus, so this is probably where the term “cames” is derived from.

In mediaeval times lead was cast in a mould made either from wood or iron. Theophilus describes the process of making an iron mould, which consisted of two parts, hinged at one end, which, when closed created a hollow ‘H’ shaped channel down the centre. Molten lead would be poured into one end then removed once cool. If you didn’t have suitable iron available you could create a mould using wood. Inevitably, this casting process resulted in large variations in the shape of the cames, which were then cut by hand to the desired size, and so are quite uneven and irregular. It was around the 16th century that the use of a lead mill for shaping the leads into a more regular profile was introduced.

The lead used in mediaeval times, although up to 99% pure, still retained a small number of impurities such as silver, tin, copper and antimony, which considerably increased the tensile strength and hardness of the lead at ambient temperatures, making the lead network stiffer and less elastic, and also more resistant to corrosion. During the nineteenth century it became possible to produce lead without all of the other naturally occurring metals which resulted in softer and less durable cames. As a result of this, it quickly became necessary to replace these softer lead cames on a regular basis, which – ironically – lead to the myth that cames would have to be replaced every 100 years or so and to the routine re-leading of medieval windows. This is actually very rarely true, especially with medieval lead which is remarkably strong, and more modern lead which deliberately contains some additional trace metals that give a stained glass panel strength as well as flexibility.  The nature of the lead used, the standard of craftsmanship in the construction of the window, and the weathering the window has been exposed to are all key factors which determine the amount of maintenance a window will need. It might need to be re-leaded just a few years after the original panel was made, or it might last for centuries.

A panel during assembly – note the design attached to the board below the glass, and the nails holding the pieces in place.

Assembly of a window usually starts at one corner of the panel and gradually works outwards and upwards. Lead strips are cut to length using a lead knife and carefully shaped around each glass section. Horse shoe nails are tapped into the assembly table and added or removed as required to hold the sections together. This process today is almost exactly as Theophilus described back in the 12^th century!

A panel during restoration being re-leaded

Once all of the pieces of glass have been brought together using lead, the joints where the leads meet then need to be soldered on both sides to secure all the pieces in position. Theophilus explains that the solder (a mixture of lead and tin) was cast in a similar way to the lead cames, using wooden or iron moulds.  Each joint would be lightly scraped and wax would be used as a flux during the soldering The soldering iron was long and thin with one end round and shaped to a point. This would be heated with care and much experience because soldering at the right temperature greatly affected the stability of the final window. Not enough heat and the solder will not run and join the cames together securely, too hot and the underlying lead will melt and distort or even burn, potentially damaging the glass beneath.

Marie soldering using an electric iron

The final step nowadays, is to cement the panels. This process, in which a putty-like mix of a calcium carbonate and boiled linseed oil is worked between the leaves of the lead cames and the glass pieces, adds greatly to the stability of the panel as well as making it more wind and waterproof. There is however, no mention of this process in any of the treatises before the 15th century which suggests that no cementing took place at this time.

Faces in the Boppard Panels – Identification and results of the survey

In this blog, we are identifying the faces and showing the percentage of the forms completed that selected faces as good or bad, and more specifically, God, Jesus, Mary and the Devil. Our next faces blog will be a more general discussion of the faces in the Boppard panels.

Many thanks to all who took part in our survey!

Faces from Agony in the Garden and Christ Before Pilate panels:
Face #	Good or Bad?	% correct	Identity	% correct
1	Good	11%	Angel
2	Bad	15%	Judas Iscariot
3	Good	6%	Disciple
4	Good	6%	Disciple
5	Good	16%	Disciple
6	Good	5%	Jesus	33%
7	Debatable!	9%	Pilate
8	Bad	23%	Calling for death of Jesus
9	Bad	17%	Calling for death of Jesus
10	Good	2%	Jesus	53%
11	Bad	63%	Calling for death of Jesus
12	Bad	28%	Calling for death of Jesus
13	Bad	12%	Calling for death of Jesus

 

Faces from Annunciation, Birth of Mary and top of the Christ Before Pilate panels:
Face #	Good or Bad?	% correct	Identity	% correct
14	Good	20%	God	25%
15	Good	2%	Angel Gabriel
16	Good	7%	Virgin Mary	57%
17	Bad	59%	Calling for death of Jesus
18	Good	2%	St Ann
19	Good	15%	Baby Mary	8%
20	Good	12%	Nurse
21	Good	9%	Nurse

 

Faces from Annunciation, Birth of Mary and top of the Christ Before Pilate panels:
Face #	Good or Bad?	% correct	Identity
22	Good	6%	Jesus	27%
23	Good	12%	St Peter
24	Good	0%	Angel
25	Good	5%	Jesus	45%
26	Good	4%	Angel

Faces from Ninth Commandment and Virgin & Child panels:
Face #	Good or Bad?	% correct	Identity	% correct
27	Good	2%	God	1%
28	Bad	76%	Devil	56%
29	Bad	6%	People coveting their neighbour’s house
30	Bad	32%	People coveting their neighbour’s house
31	Bad	51%	People coveting their neighbour’s house
32	Bad	62%	People coveting their neighbour’s house
33	Good	4%	People looking to heaven
34	Good	6%	People looking to heaven
35	Good	4%	People looking to heaven
36	Good	4%	People looking to heaven
37	Good	0%	Angel
38	Good	33%	Baby Jesus
39	Good	4%	Virgin Mary	61%

Faces from a canopy and the Siegfried von Gelnhausen panels:
Face #	Good or Bad?	% correct	Identity	% correct
41	Good	11%	Praying man
42	Good	4%	Praying man
43	Good	24%	Siegfried
44	Good	4%	Siegfried’s wife

 

 

Armour in the Boppard Panels

Men in armour are a frequent sight in medieval art, including stained glass, and provide an invaluable source of information to those studying arms and armour. Since it is made of steel that rusts or can be recycled or reused, relatively little of the original plate armour remains, and even rarer are the leather straps and pins that held the pieces together. Images of armour found in stained glass, paintings, tombs and brasses, give vital insight into the the details of the armour and the way in which it was worn.

There are three main images of armed men in the Burrell Collection Boppard windows, appearing in the Agony in the Garden, Christ before Pilate and Resurrection panels, as shown below.

Detail from Agony in the Garden

Detail from Christ before Pilate

Detail from Resurrection Panel

At the time the Boppard windows were painted (early 15^th century), the two most important areas of fine armour production were Germany and Italy (mainly Milan). It is also an important period in armour design, with the transition into full body armour and plate armour.

The detail from Agony in the Garden shows a man wearing a sallet (a war helmet) and a kind of bevor or aventail. The bevor worn with a sallet, protected the throat and neck and was made of solid plate or lames (overlapping strips of steel held together with leather straps to which they were riveted). Interestingly, in this case it would appear that the chin area is in solid plate, but the throat and neck protection are in mail. This would require the bevor to be held in position by attachment to the sallet with straps. In battle, he would pull the sallet down to protect his face, looking through the two slits in the helmet. A selection of German sallets is shown in the image below  by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, a 19^th century French architect and theorist.

German sallets is shown in the image below by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc

St. Quirinus, carved on a German oak stall end from the Lower Rhine late 15th-early 16th century, shown below and on display in the Burrell, is wearing a very similar sallet. This stall end was possibly made by the woodcarver Heinrich Bernts of Kalkar (d.1509).

 

Burrell Collection German oak stall end with St. Quirinus – Lower Rhine late 15th-early 16th century

The man in the detail below from Christ before Pilate is wearing a great bassinet, where the helmet, visor, chin and neck protection are all made of plate steel (replacing the mail aventail).

The rounded visor became popular in Germany, as shown in the detail below from a German painting of 1435, by Konrad Witz.

the detail from a German painting of 1435, by Konrad Witz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Konrad_Witz_Sabobai_And_Benaiah_(1435)_fragment.jpg

The small circular metal shield (or Besague) worn by our Boppard knight detailed below, just beneath his left shoulder, differs from the leaf shaped protection on the right side as he would have carried a lance under his right arm.

Detail from Christ before Pilate

The soldier on the right in the Resurrection panel detailed below, wears a Kastenburst breastplate, with flat surfaces and a sharp angular design. German armour had a more angular design than the more rounded Italian armour, as can be seen in the fabulous Avant Armour in Glasgow’s collection, made in Milan about 1445.

 

Detail from Resurrection Panel

Avant Armour made in the Corio Workshop in Milan, Italy around 1445
(Glasgow Museums Collection)

All our soldiers wear a mail skirt to protect the lower body. The armour of the soldier on the right is richly decorated with gilding.

 

Halos in the Boppard Panels

The Oxford dictionary describes a halo as “A circle of light shown around or above the head of a saint or holy person to represent their holiness” or as “A circle of white or coloured light around the sun, moon, or other luminous body caused by refraction through ice crystals in the atmosphere”. The words Aura and Nimbus also refer to a halo. It is thought that halos may have originated in or even before Egyptian times. The goddess Sekhmet bears theSolar disk to indicate she is the daughter of the sun god Ra. The beautiful head of the lioness Goddess on display in the Burrell Collection has lost her Solar Disk, although you can see the socket where it would have fitted on the top of her head. The Sekhmet below is from the British Museum.

Sekhmet, from the British Museum
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Sekhmet_%28British_Museum%29.jpg

Many religions have adopted halos to indicated people of very special importance, such as in the standing Budda below, and in the Islamic painting later in the blog.

Standing Budda, with halo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gandhara_Buddha_(tnm).jpeg

Halos have risen and fallen in popularity over time, but are well featured in the Boppard stained glass. There are four different types of halo used in the Boppard glass from the Burrell Collection. The simplest halo of all was used for the angels, and consists of a simple yellow disk around the angel’s head, as shown in the example below.

Boppard Angel from the Resurrection panel

The saints in the Boppard panels have an enhanced halo with radiant lines emanating outwards. A range of colours are used to enhance the designs.

Boppard St Peter from the Christ Appearing To Peter panel

The aureole, sometimes called a mandorla, is a full body halo, and is often used in depictions of the Virgin Mary to symbolise glory. The mandorla is seen in the Virgin and Child panel detailed below.

Boppard Virgin And Child from the Ten Commandments Window

An alternative style of halo can be seen in the images of the Prophet Muhammad, such as the one on the left below showing the arrival of the Prophet in Jerusalem, from Mir-Heidar’s “Miraj Nameh”, a 15^th century  illustrated book from Turkey. Here, the halo is in the form of flames, common in Asian art, completely surrounding the Prophet, and around the heads of the other earlier Prophets. In the middle is a small brass statue of Budda in the Metropolitan Museum dating to the late 6th century and made in the ancient region of Gandhara, an ancient kingdom in the Swat and Kabul river valleys and the Pothohar Plateau, in modern-day northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. In this statue, Budda has both a radiant halo and a mandorla. On the right is a statue of Shiva, (or Siva), one of the most important Hindu gods, completely surrounded by a flaming circular halo.

Three examples of mandorla

The Boppard Virgin and Child panel, Mary also has a green halo around her crown, a colour associated with life, referring to her status as the mother of Christ.

Boppard Virgin And Child from the Ten Commandments Window

Jesus usually wears a cruciform halo, a radiant halo with a celtic shaped cross on it to emphasise his sacrifice on the cross and to symbolise the Holy Trinity.

Boppard Jesus from the Resurrection panel

Other halos not used in the Boppard panels include the less common triangular halo and the square halo.

Photo of Saint Peter Church, in Saint Charles, Missouri
http://www.romeofthewest.com/2008/02/photos-of-saint-peter-church-in-saint.html

In this image behind the altar at Saint Peter Church, in Saint Charles, Missouri, God wears a triangular halo to symbolize the Trinity and the dove (symbol of the Holy Spirit) wears the cruciform halo.

Mosaic from the chapel of St. Zeno at the church of St. Praessede, Rome
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/sterk/women/women.html

In this magnificent mosaic from in the Chapel of Bishop Zeno of Verona located within the church of St. Praessede, in Rome, the Virgin Mary is second from the right, between Saints Praxedes and Pudentiana, and the woman on the left is identified in the Greek inscription as “Theodora, Bishop” (“Episcopa”). Theodora is depicted with a square halo, indicating that the image was made when she was alive. Theodora was widely known to be a devout Christian in the early Church, and was notable for her acts of piety and sanctity.

 

The Costume of Pilate in the Boppard Panels

Since, in art, most people wear clothes, fashions and costume can be a fascinating area of study! Artists would use clothing to indicate a person of wealth, high status, part of the general population or someone evil. When the Boppard windows were being designed, anyone who was not Christian would have been a barbarian and therefore not good. In the ‘Christ before Pilate’ panel shown below, Pilate would not have been seen as a good man. It is interesting to consider how he has been represented.

Christ Before Pilate Panel – with detail of Pilate

Clearly, he is a wealthy man of high status. There is a possible Turkish influence to his costume, with a fur trimmed gown and pointed hat and pointed beard, as the Ottoman Empire was of great interest in Europe at the time. However, Albert Kretschmer in his “Costumes of All Nations” under 1400-1450 German costume shows a similar costume and describes him as a Jew. Albert Kretschmer (1825 – 1891) was a German professor and renowned painter and costumer to the Royal Court Theatre, Berlin.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1400-1450,_German._-_049_-_Costumes_of_All_Nations_(1882).JPG

A Page from Albert Kretschmer’s “Costumes of All Nations

In the Crucifixion, painted in 1403 by Conrad von Soest who was based in Dortmund in Germany, we see a similarly dressed man with a pointy beard pushing the spear into the side of Jesus on the Cross. According to the Gospel of John (19:31–37), it was a Roman soldier (named in extra-Biblical tradition as Longinus), who stabbed him in the side to check that he was dead. In this painting, it is not a soldier, but clearly not a Christian. Perhaps this reinforces the idea that the costume represented a Jew or someone from the Ottoman Empire?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Konrad_von_Soest_Crucifixion.jpg

Conrad von Soest’s Crucifixion, 1403

We can also compare Pilate’s costume with a man in the Stefan Lochner Altarpiece of the Patron Saints of Cologne, in Cologne Cathedral and painted in the 1440s when the Boppard windows were being painted. Would these be Jews or Muslims? Was this style of costume worn by some of the wealthier people around Cologne in the first half of the 15th century?

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stefan_Lochner_-_Altarpiece_of_the_Patron_Saints_of_Cologne_-_WGA13341.jpg

Stefan Lochner’s Altar piece of the Patrons of Cologne, 1440s

Any thoughts?

Looking at Dirt, Corrosion and Paint

We have started conserving the Boppard stained glass. Our first task is surface cleaning which is not straightforward because there are so many different layers of dirt, original paint and retouching. It is not that easy to tell what is there by intention (original or restoration) and what has simply accumulated on the surface of the glass over time.
The glass is covered with a layer of loose dirt which can easily be removed using a smoke sponge. With a gentle dabbing motion the cells in the sponge pick up and trap dirt from the surface of the glass. This can be a very effective method of cleaning, especially if one is trying to clean loose particle dirt.

Removing loose particle dirt with smoke sponges

The Boppard glass also has a layer of black sooty dirt. In order to remove this, we tested a variety of solvents and found that saliva is the most effective. We don’t much fancy cleaning 34 m² of glass using spit, so we are also using water (de-ionised) with a conservation grade detergent (Synperonic A7) and this works almost as well.

Removing the black surface dirt using a cotton wool bud and saliva

Apart from surface dirt there are other layers: In the 10 commandments window many of the glasses have a matt brownish- grey coating. We have considered if this could be a painted layer that was applied in order to tone down the colour and shine of the glass but we don’t think it is. There are no brush marks to be seen and it coats the glass surfaces very evenly without any emphasis on the drawing. It cannot be fired paint because in some areas it has been completely removed.

Detail from the 10 commandments window

The layer is relatively hard and almost like a crust. It can be removed with mechanical means (scalpel) but not with solvents. Seen under the microscope it sits on top of the trace lines. Where the layer is absent the glass looks remarkably transparent and unblemished.
We think that this layer accumulated on the glass when dust, moisture and time worked together and formed a crust on the surface. In some places this crust has been removed by accident (pulling off sticky tapes, selective cleaning).

Detail – Microscopic image of the left eye of the angel

The microscopic image shows how vulnerable all these layers are and how little else is there. If you removed any of it, you would be left with very little definition apart from the trace lines. This leads us to conclude that there was a problem with the original paint perhaps it was under-fired and not very stable. However it is astonishing (and slightly baffling) that the glass is generally so clear and un-corroded where the paint has flaked away. One explanation may be that the windows were removed from the church before the onset of serious industrial pollution.
On the back of the same window we also find a similar pattern of painted areas and accumulation of dirt and weathering. The glass was originally back-painted in order to emphasise the detailed drawing on the front. Again in most areas the original paint lines appear ‘faded’. Along some of these lines as well as around the edges of each glass and along the top of the panel (underneath the tie bar) moisture accumulated and in combination with dust started to form a crust on the glass surface. In the middle of each glass piece this crust is not present and the glass is in good condition. However one can see some iridescence which indicates that a chemical change has occurred.

Detail from Detail of 45.489.1.c

Most of these layers on the glass, both front and back will not be removed during conservation treatment. They are inorganic and very hard and although the glass underneath appears to have little corrosion it can easily be scratched and the gel layer can be damaged. The areas where the weathering layer and paint have been removed will be carefully retouched and we hope that by a combination of cleaning and retouching the overall impact of the imagery will be much improved.

– Marie.

Canopies in Art

In the ancient courts of Asia and the Eastern Roman Empire, people of high status such as emperors or monarchs would have fabric canopies over their thrones as a sign of honour. This allowed the person of importance to be quickly identified in a crowd. This probably developed from very early times when people of importance, such as royalty, would have travelled under a cover to shelter from the elements. The painting below shows the Holy Roman Emperor, Otto III, who lived from 980 to 1002CE, enthroned under a canopy with a cloth of honour behind.

Otto III – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Meister_der_Reichenauer_Schule_002.jpg

The detail from a painting of the family of Henry VIII, shows him on his throne with a cloth of state which forms both the canopy and the cover behind the throne.

Detail of The Family of Henry VIII, now at Hampton Court Palace, c. 1545 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Family_of_Henry_VIII_c_1545_detail.jpg

On display in the Burrell Collection there is a very fine example of a canopy made for Queen Elizabeth I, when she visited Sir Roger Wodehouse and his wife Mary Corbet at Kimberly Hall, Norfolk, on the night of 22 August 1578. Called the Kimberley Throne, it would have had a raised platform to place the Queen above ‘ordinary’ level of her subjects.

Burrell Collection – Kimberley Throne 1578

Kings and Queens along with their court would often go on a ‘Royal Progress’ around their Kingdom to be seen by their subjects. On this occasion, Queen Elizabeth and her Court were on their way from Norwich to Cambridge. The heraldic arms of the Wodehouse and Corbet families is embroidered on the backcloth. The two ‘wildmen’ supporters of the shield of arms are a punning reference to the word ‘wode/wood’ in the name of the owner (‘wild man of the woods’), and these two men carrying clubs also recall, in the fashion of a parody, the classical hero Hercules, who is also usually depicted carrying a club in art. It is probable that this ‘throne’ was made up from hangings which already existed in the Hall, and perhaps originally formed part of an elaborate tester bed. The rich embroidery was professionally worked, and possibly carried out in Italy.

It was a great honour to host the court but the cost could bankrupt a family as there were dozens of people in the court to be entertained and looked after. Hosts would compete to put on better and more lavish hospitality than anyone else.

Burrell Collection – French or Flemish niche with a Saint holding a shield 15C

Although the terms are often used interchangeably, a cloth or portable canopy is properly described as a baldachin. The term baldachin (there are lots of different spellings) derives from the Italian “Baldacco”, referring to a rich embroidered brocade of silk and perhaps even gold, that was mainly sourced from Baghdad. If the canopy is a more permanent structure of wood or stone, such as might be found over a church altar, it is referred to as a ciborium. Ciborium can also refer to the architectural niche in which the statue of a saint is placed, as in the 15^th century French or Flemish example from the Burrell Collection above; a limestone niche with a Saint holding a shield.

I’m going to just call them canopies!

As an important symbol of status, canopies are everywhere in Christian art. Reliquaries and other church objects designed to contain objects of great religious significance often also have canopies. For example, the early 16^th century German Monstrance (below), made with gilt and engraved copper with champlevé enamelling shown below.

Burrell Collection – Monstrance, early 16th century, German

Monstrances were used to display the consecrated Host for the Mass and to carry it in procession. In the Burrell example, the rock-crystal cylinder which would have contained the Host is missing.

Just to compare two examples of the Annunciation; the left wing of a triptych (below) by an artist with the catchy name “Master of the Prado, Adoration of the Magi”, and the Nottingham alabaster (at the bottom) that has been mentioned before. The Nottingham alabaster shows Mary reading her bible (the Old Testament) while kneeling under a canopy. The wing of the triptych is a little different; as Mary is in her bedroom, the artist has used the four-poster bed with the curtains folded into a tear shape exposing the unused bed (alluding to her purity) and creating the effect of a canopy to emphasise her status.

Burrell Collection – Annunciation by Master of the Prado Adoration of the Magi

Burrell Collection – Nottingham Alabaster – The Annunciation, late 15C

We’ll take a look at canopies in stained glass in the next blog.

History of the Carmelite Church

Map of the Holy Land

The Church at Boppard from which the fabulous Boppard stained Glass windows came from, was built by the Carmelite Order in the first half of the 14^th century and extended to the north between 1439 and 1444. It is therefore appropriate to take a short look at the history of the Carmelites, up to the building of the church at Boppard.

At the time of the crusades, Christian pilgrims flocked to the holy land, and after fulfilling their pilgrimage, some wanted to follow a life of prayerful solitude and service, and settled in different parts of the holy land, including the mountains around Jericho, the range of Mount Carmel by the Mediterranean sea, and Mount Tabor near Galilee, which is traditionally identified as the Mount of Transfiguration (so called because – according to the gospel of Matthew, chapter 17 – on this mount or hill Jesus was transfigured before his disciples: “… and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light…”).

Saladin was the first Sultan of Egypt and Syria and founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. In 1187, he had a great victory at the Battle of Hattin over the Crusader forces, where his Muslim armies inflicted a major defeat, effectively eliminating them as a fighting force and opening the way for the re-conquering of Jerusalem and several other Crusader-held cities. The only area now left to the Christian pilgrims to settle in was Acre and some areas along the med coast. The group who chose Mount Carmel were following the example of Elijah (also  Elias), a holy man and a lover of solitude, who is described in the Book of Kings. They established themselves in small cells and followed the Eremitic (or hermit) lifestyle near to a spring known as Elijah’s Fountain.

Elijah’s Fountain – painting by Pietro Lorenzett

Elijah’s Fountain – [painting by Pietro Lorenzetti – 1328-9 for altarpiece of Carmelite church in Siena, Italy – now at Pinacoteca in Siena]

As independent hermits, this group had no founder, but after some years they decided to come together and become more formally organised. One of them, Brocard, sometime around 1209 and acting in a leadership role, contacted a priest of the Canons Regular and Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Albert of Vercilli (later to become St. Albert Avogadro) to write a ‘rule of life’ – a set of rules of consecrated life in the eremitic style. The result is the shortest rule of life in existence of the Roman Catholic spiritual tradition. The full pdf of these rules is available at http://www.carmelite.org/documents/Spirituality/rsacodtranslation.pdf.

The Carmelites took Mary, the Mother of Jesus, as their patroness, and they gradually became known as the Brothers of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, and looked to the figures of Elijah and Mary for inspiration, and dedicated their first chapel to the Mother of God.

The Carmelites position on Mt Carmel was often under threat. They had been driven from Carmel but had managed to return and build a slightly larger church than the original, but eventually around 1238, the position of Christians in the area was so precarious that they had to leave.  They spread out to other countries (often their countries of origin, as many of the monks would have been crusaders or pilgrims), such as Cyprus, Sicily and France (Marseilles). Eventually, in 1242, they reached England (Hulne, near Alnwich in Northumberland, Bradmer in Norfolk, Aylesford, and Newenden in Kent), accompanying the Barons de Vescy and Grey returning from the crusade of Richard, Earl of Cornwall (1241). No longer perusing an eremitic lifestyle, the Carmelites turned from being hermits to friars, assumed the mendicant tradition, forbidden to own property in common, working and go wherever they were needed. In 1291, the remaining hermits on Mount Carmel were put to the sword and their convent burnt down.

The original Carmelite order was approved by Honorius III in 1226, and by Gregory IX in 1229. Partly due to their new distribution out of the desert and into cities, fresh approval was sought and given by Pope Innocent IV in 1245. At the second council of Lyons in 1274, the Carmelite order was definitively approved.

In 1287 the Carmelites adopted a pure white woollen mantel, which caused them to be called Whitefriars. The mantle is an important monastic vestment, which covers the whole person with the exception of the head, and has much symbolic meaning. It is sometimes referred to as the Angelic vestment due to its flowing lines which allude to the wings of an angel, and its folds represent the all-embracing power of God as well as the strictness, piety and meekness of the monastic life. The absence of sleeves indicated that the hands and arms of a monk are not for worldly activities.

The scapular has been an important part of the Carmelite habit since the late 13th century. It is like a long piece of cloth, about chest width, with a head sized hole in the middle so that it hangs equals down the front and back of the body. The Carmelite Constitution of 1369 stipulates automatic excommunication for Carmelites who say Mass without a scapular, while the Constitutions of 1324 and 1294 consider it a serious fault to sleep without the scapular. In the Siegfried von Gelnhausen panel, although not a friar himself, he is seen wearing a blue scapular.