March, 1912 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 83 
“The Rainbow’’—stained-glass window designed by Walter Shirlaw for a room in the residence of Mr. William T. Evans, Montclair, N. J. 
Stained and Leaded 
Glass for the House 
By Ida J. Burgess 
MONG the architectural accessories that lend 
refinement to the dwelling house are to be 
considered windows of stained and of leaded 
glass. Stained glass, as distinguished from 
leaded glass, is that material which depends 
primarily upon color for its effect, whereas 
leaded glass is dependent upon the lines of lead that form a 
patterned network to hold the bits of plain glass that com- 
pose the whole panel, and rarely contain color at all, al- 
though occasionally color is introduced in a slight degree 
into the decorative scheme. 
Originally the term “‘stained glass’ referred to the ma- 
terial treated by a chemical process, whereby a solution of 
silver was retained upon the 
surface of the glass as it was 
placed in a kiln for “‘baking,”’ 
coming forth a yellow trans- 
parency wherever the silver 
solution had been applied. 
This staining of glass was 
much practiced at a time long 
after colored glass had 
reached its highest excellence, 
but, by one of those occa- 
sional misapplications of 
terms that of “‘stained glass” 
came to be applied to all 
work in colored glass, as 
used in windows, and has 
clung tenaciously to it, to the 
universal exclusion of the 
truer term, “colored glass,” 
A walldesioned window 
in leaded glass. 
colored glass has been introduced in this window with good effect 
A few years ago, especially in the ’80’s, when ‘“‘builder’s 
architecture” became responsible for so much of the poor 
taste then prevalent in house construction, almost a mania 
for stained glass, or what passed as such, spread over 
America. It is doubtful if any country, even during the 
darkest years of the dark ages, found itself so swamped 
with inartistic hideousness of the sort of the “stained glass” 
in question (one is impelled to use quotes) as did our home- 
makers at this time. The windows of poor design were 
constructed of poor glass atrociously colored—‘‘pink, pur- 
ple and sauterne,”’ as someone describes the coloring of 
the windows unfortunately still within our recollection— 
though occasionally one met with an exception to the pre- 
vailing poor taste. A great 
deal of the trouble lay in the 
fact that the builders of 
American houses of two or 
three decades ago quite for- 
got the precedent set by ar- 
chitects of Colonial times— 
the precedent of preserving 
harmony in all parts com- 
posing the architectural 
whole. The early-day archi- 
tect of the noble Colonial 
houses, that dignified the 
period of their construction, 
never dreamed of filling their 
windows with glass better 
suited to a baronial castle, a 
Jacobean manor house, to the 
chateau, or other old-world 
— ie =a 
me Po ee oe 
It will be Patited that 
