by Maurice Drake 
P ERHAPS no hobby gives more pleasure to its rider than the 
collecting of old stained-glass, and very few indeed are 
more directly or indirectly profitable. Despite the great increase 
in the number of stained-glass enthusiasts during the past ten 
years, by comparison with other pursuits the subject still remains 
almost untrodden ground. Glass has not yet had the vogue of 
old china, of old furniture, or of pictures, and although a large 
number of larger and more important panels have already been 
absorbed into this or that collection, large quantities still remain 
scattered up and down throughout the country, only waiting for 
the eye of the expert to detect their value. One never knows 
when or where they may be encountered. Any shabby hole seems 
considered good enough for the storage of old glass. It seems 
to creep for safety into the remotest corners, and there lies for¬ 
gotten till some chance shaft of sunlight pierces ivy or cobwebs 
and wakes it to life and color or a turning out of neglected re¬ 
cesses brings it again to light. 
Nobody values it. Though a few hundred collectors are in 
constant search of it, and perhaps twice as many antiquaries may 
display some curiosity when it is brought under their notice, the 
great bulk of English people care nothing whatever about old 
stained-glass. I have seen a farmer removing fourteenth-century 
grisaille with a shovel. And good glass too. As for small scraps, 
England is full of them and America has many examples, and it 
is just such small fragments that the beginner should at first en¬ 
deavor to obtain. 
In all collecting one must buy experience, and when it can be 
bought cheaply, in small doses, as it were, it tastes much better 
than when purchased in large quantities at considerable expense. 
The collector of limited means who has purchased small speci¬ 
mens at a low rate can learn as much from them as can his 
wealthier brother from the larger and more complete examples 
that adorn his collection. 
Let the beginner therefore seek broken scraps of old glass 
rather than complete specimens, no matter of what period. 
Should he come across panels or medallions that appear to him of 
interest or value, let him call in an expert to report upon them 
rather than run the risk of spending money on worthless copies 
of old work. Forgeries are nearly always complete, naturally, 
though a few breakages and repairs may sometimes be introduced 
to give them an air of antiquity. They are very tempting, some of 
them. Here a head of a saint, there a little complete—or nearly 
complete—figure or subject compositions; I grant you they seem 
to promise far better value for money than a couple of handfuls 
of dirty, chipped and broken scraps, which look as though they 
had just been picked up off a rubbish heap in a field. The worse 
they look—the more they resemble pieces of dirty bottle-glass or 
broken tiles—the more likely it is that they are worth acquiring. 
A study of their irregularities — their rudely chipped edges, their 
streaks and ridges and holes and deposits of grime—alone can im¬ 
part that knowledge without which the collector will be wise to 
refrain from purchasing the larger and more valuable specimens. 
When a dozen or so of small pieces have been acquired it would 
be as well to have an expert’s opinion upon them. Any competent 
glass-painter should be able to point out the more obvious evi¬ 
dences of age, and after once learning these the collector can go 
on buying with more certainty. These first tiny scraps should 
be leaded together in a patchwork, and hung up before a window. 
This plan is better than keeping them in a cabinet, as not only do 
they generally possess some remains of beauty in their coloring, 
which makes it worth while to keep them in view, but their ap¬ 
pearance becomes familiar, and the collector’s eye more readily 
learns to recognize other antique fragments at sight. At the 
present moment it should be comparatively easy to acquire a col¬ 
lection of such fragments, perhaps twenty or thirty pieces in all, 
ranging in date from the middle of the fourteenth to the close of 
the eighteenth century, for about five dollars at most, and for a 
considerably less sum if the buyer keeps his eyes about him. A 
thorough examination of such a series, conducted with intelli¬ 
gence, should leave the collector with an asset worth twenty times 
his outlay, a knowledge of the subject that will enable him in 
many cases to recognize some of the leading peculiarities of each 
period at sight. 
As his collection grows the small fragments it contains can be 
leaded-up in more medallions, bestowing ever more and more 
spots of bright color to his windows, and later, when he purchases 
larger and more important pieces, these patchworks can be pulled 
to pieces and leaded-up again as borders round the more valuable 
specimens of each period. In such houses as have lead-lights in 
their windows, nothing is easier than to remove a pane, to instruct 
a glazier to lead-up some scraps to the required size, and to fit 
the little patch of color as a centre-piece to the leaded light, thus 
getting the excellent effect of a Renaissance domestic design — a 
colored center set amidst plain glazing. Where the windows are 
the ordinary large sashes, a ring of wire can be soldered to the 
outer lead of the patchwork, and the medallion hung by it to a 
hook fixed in the central sash-bar. It is surprising what an ad¬ 
dition — and what an attractive addition — such a little splash of 
translucent color makes in a modern room. And the more pieces 
are added, the more the color is enhanced and the effect improved. 
This suggestion as to patchwork only applies, of course, to 
really small scraps — fragments, say, of less than about two inches 
in diameter. Larger pieces if drapery, canopy work, inscriptions 
and so on, possessing some individuality of their own, should be 
made up into panels. 
(Continued on page 397) 
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