21S 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



^JULY, 



found ;it Lord Listowel's, at Kensington. The peculiarity to be ob- 

 served in piintings of the Muss school, (I tliink it may also be tenne.d 

 the dtftcl,) is the great degree of opacity given to some of the colours ; 

 whereas in tlie best works of the artists of the middle ages all the 

 colours are more or less translucent. Of all Muss's living |)upils Mr. 

 Nixon, of the firm of Ward and Nixon, has peibaps most entirely 

 abandoned this peculiarity, and the result apparent in such of the 

 works executed by this firm as I have examined, is of an exceedingly 

 satisfactory nature. 



The branch of glass painting now most encouraged appears to me, 

 although of itself charming, a departure from the special character of 

 this art. I allude to the imitation of oil paintings on single plates of 

 glass, or of plates composed of very few large pieces, — such for exam- 

 ple as the copy of " Belshazzar's Feast," and others of Martin's wonder- 

 ful conceptions, which have been so well executed by Messrs. Hoadley 

 and Oldfield. 



Dallaway says that Thomas Jervais, who died in ISO], was the first 

 who was distinguished for exquisitely finishing small subjects, since 

 which time this department of the art has been much studied and has 

 been brought to a point of great excellence. In productions of this sort a 

 variety of colours are fused into the same piece of glass, and it becomes 

 almost impossible to obtain with such certainty equal effects of colour, 

 as when each tint is on a separate piece of glass, although this style has 

 undoubtedly its own advantages. In the works of the earlier manner the 

 colours are nearly always on separate pieces, the various morsels being 

 united by leaden or copper bands, and shaded with brown. A hardness 

 of outline resulted, and a great excellence in drawing was not easily 

 attainable, but there is nevertheless about them a character [leculiarly 

 their own which should not willingly be lost in decorating ecclesiasti- 

 cal structures of the style of the middle ages. Of course we should 

 not give up the power we possess through our improved mechanical 

 skill, to avoid injurious joinings where this can be done without dimi- 

 nution of excellence in other respects; what I wo\ild simply express 

 is, my conviction that to endeavour to make stained glass appeal to be 

 anything else than stained glass is not desirable. 



An error, as it appears to me, is sometimes committed in placing 

 copies of the later Italian masters in the windows of structures erected 

 in the earlier pointed styles of art. Our improved taste has made us 

 feel that to place an Italian altar-piece in a (jtothic church is to violate 

 propriety and destroy harmony. Why should the filling-in of the 

 windows escape the general law that all portions of a building avow- 

 edly in imitation of the works of a particular period should be con- 

 gruous. The windows ought unquestionably to accord with the build- 

 ing itself, both as regards their design and the technical peculiarities 

 which mark the genuine works of the period imitated. 



Mr. Willement, whose works are well known to all who have in- 

 quired into the subject, is justly celebrated for his imitations of the 

 efforts of the earlier artists in stained glass, and of these no other ex- 

 ample need be given than the principal window in .St. Dunstan's 

 church. Fleet-street, executed by him a few years since. This window 

 was presented to the parish by the Messrs. Hoare.* 



In France at this time the art of painting on glass is making satis- 

 factory, although but gradual, advances. During the period of the 

 first revolution the abhorrence of every thing connected with royalty 

 which prevailed, led to the suppression of tlie government establish- 

 ment for the manufacture of glass and china at Sevres, and to the 

 destruction of numerous fine specimens of its skill. While many glass 

 windows were broken and melted down in the vain belief that as gold 

 was employed in the preparation of some of the colours, it could be 

 extracted and made available. Buonaparte sought to re-establish the 

 manufactory on its former footing, but found that, although they pos- 

 sessed all the written details of the processes, France which had pro- 

 duced so many noble works in stained glass, and the most perfect 

 existing history of its progress and manufacture, was unable then to 

 furnish artists capable of regaining for the establishment any of its 

 former reputation. The art however was still exercised, but so little 

 progress was made that prior to the year 1825, the practice of it ap- 

 pears to have been confined to this royal establishment at Sevres, fame, 

 not profit, being the object aimed at, and even there great success does 

 nut seem to have attended their efforts, if we may judge from the 

 following circumstance. A window of painted glass was conq)leted 

 at Se\res in 1827, for the church of Notre Dame de Lorette, and when 

 fixeil, which did not occur until some years afterwards, in consequence 

 of the building remaining unfinished, it was declared to be a chef 



* Although this paper dues not pretend to give the names of aW the pro- 

 fessors of glass panning praclisiing in England ; (unl'urtunately necessarily 

 few), ihe wrier cannot omit tu rnentiun Mr. Millar, who has executed a num- 

 ber of works at Stiniyhurst, and Mr. Wilmnshurst uhose large production 

 The Field of tho Cloth ul Gold " was destroyed Ijy lire. 



d'a-iu^re of modern art. In less than eighteen months however, as I am 

 informed by a correspondent, the colours had faded so considerably as 

 to render the window a public monument of failure, and permission to 

 take it down was in consequence applied for. The dampness of the 

 building was the cause assigned for the misliap, but insomuch as the 

 carcass had been erected many years, tliis could not have been verv 

 excessive : and whether so or not, this failure could not have occurred 

 had the colours been properly fused into the glass. Want of effect in 

 some of the works executed at Sevres has been attributed to the em- 

 ployment without modification, of the same mode of operation as is 

 successfully adopted for porcelain. The bases of the colours are the 

 same for one as for the other ; but glass, in consequence of its translu- 

 cent nature, requires that the tints sho\ild be much more intense than 

 it is necessary they should be for china, which is opaque. 



We have said that, prior to 1S25, the art of painting on glass was' 

 nearly confined to the establishment at Sevres. In that year Monsieur 

 le Comte de Chabrol, then Frefet of the Seine, entered into corres- 

 pondence with Mr. Jones, a pupil of our countryman, Charles Muss, 

 already mentioned, the result of which was that Mr. Jones went to 

 Paris with the intention of forming a government establishment for 

 painting upon and staining glass, in which pecuniary profit was to be 

 regarded as a main consideration. Immediately on the arrival of Mr. 

 Jones, M. de Chabrol was virulently attacked for allurding encourage- 

 ment to a foreigner "to the injury of native talent," and for four years 

 the question was violently agitated without any result. At the end of 

 that time, fatigued by the continued opposition to which he had been 

 subjected, Mr. Jones abandoned the idea of a government establish- 

 ment, and devoted his energies to forming and carrying on with suc- 

 cess a private undertaking. He proposed to the proprietors of the 

 glass works at Choisy le Koi, t;\o leagues from Paris, to establish a 

 department for staining and painting on glass, in conjiuietion with the 

 other operations. They assented to his views, affairs were put tii 

 train, and success has attended the attempt. Nearly all the persons 

 at present employed in it have been educated to it by Mr. Jones, and, 

 in consequence, work well together, a circumstance which, in con- 

 nexion with the opportunities he possesses for making experiments 

 at small cost, and the comparatively trifling expence of the recipient 

 in France, places stained and painted glass within the means of a 

 much larger class of persons there than it is in England. Green, blue, 

 or red glass, for example, may be bought in Paris for lA franc per foot, 

 purple for 2 or 24 francs, and ruby for 3 francs. Progress in the art 

 of staining glass appears to have been greatly aided by M. Bontems, 

 the director of the works at Choisy, wdio has devoted much time to 

 the attainment of the ruby Coloured glass of which such magnificent 

 specimens are to be found in earlier works. I am informed he has 

 succeeded, after repeated experiments, in obtaining it at a much 

 cheaper rate than formerly by the use of oxide of copper instead of 

 oxide of gold, and without any diminution of excellence. The expe- 

 rience of English glass stainers is opposed to this statement, as all 

 ruby coloured glass prepared here from copper is inferior. I am not 

 able, however, on this point to do more than repeat what I am told. 

 M. Bontems has recently visited the costly establishments of the King 

 of Bavaria at Munich, where, although he found, as he considered it, 

 an inferiority on the whole, he gained much information. The princely 

 magnificence of the King of Bavaria in all matters that relate to art, 

 and the extraordinary results he has produced in his little capital, 

 will serve to throw a halo round his name in the pages of future his- 

 torians.. 



The establishment at Choisy possesses an advantage in the friendly 

 co-operation of some artists of talent, not glass painters. In order to 

 render a design effective on glass, such changes and alterations from 

 the original picture are sometimes necessaiy, as would be entirely ob- 

 jected to by painters nervously careful of their fame, so that it is 

 sometimes difficult to find artists of ability willing to exert their 

 talents for the purposes of glass-painting, as they must be subservient 

 in a certain degree to him who has the execution of the work, and on 

 whom of course depends the effect to be produced. The last works 

 exhibited in Paris by the Choisy establishment were designed by M. 

 Adolphe Fries, a warm friend of the undertaking, and obtained mucli 

 commendation. It is hardly necessary to say that since the successful 

 issue of the experiment at Choisy le Roi, attempts have been made 

 to form other similar establishments, but, being ill conducted, have, 

 for the most part, failed. Men were even seduced from Choisy by 

 golden promises to aid the undertaking; but the directing mind being 

 absent, found themselves powerless. 



The works at Sevres are chiefly limited to the supply of govern- 

 ment wants. The only window lately executed by thein which 1 have 

 seen, is in the cathedral at Eti, near Dieppe. This was the gift of the 

 King of the French, who, on more occasions than one, has evinced j. 

 strong desire to advance the arts in his kingdom. 



