Courtly Love at The Getty
The J. Paul Getty Museum in the USA is currently exhibiting a newly acquired drawing that was the design for a quatrefoil in stained glass. The drawing is in pen and ink, and shows four scenes around an empty blazon: a landscape with a castle, a maiden tempted by a fool, a couple seated by a trough, and a knight and his lover. It measures 9 6 x 8.5 in./24.3 x 21.7cm.
Design for a stained-glass window attributed to the Master of the Housebook, c.1475–90.
The design was created c.1475–90 by an artist in the workshop of the Master of the Housebook, or the Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet –the name given to an engraver and painter working in South Germany in the last quarter of the fifteenth century. He takes his name from drawings in a ‘Housebook’ in a private collection in Germany, and from the large collection of his prints held in the Print Room of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. He is recognized as one of the most gifted and engaging Northern European masters of his period, and is a major figure in the history of secular stained glass.
Detail of the design for a stained-glass window attributed to the Master of the Housebook, c. 1475–90: courtly love.
CVMA (USA) author, Timothy Husband, has suggested that a stained-glass window in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York (Cloisters Collection 1982.47.1) could be based on a model designed by the artist. For further reading, see J. P. Filedt Kok, The Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet or the Housebook Master, ca. 1470 – 1500 (Amsterdam Rijksmuseum in association with Princetown University Press, 1985); Timothy Husband, ‘The Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet,’ Burlington Magazine, 127/987 (June 1985), pp. 348 and 401–405; and Timothy Husband, ‘The Dissemination of Design in Small-scale Glass Production: the Case of the “Medeival Housebook”‘, Gesta, xxxvii/2 (1998), pp. 178–85.
The exhibition Made for Manufacture: Drawings for Sculpture and the Decorative Arts runs from 6 February 6 to 20 May 2007 at the Getty Center, Los Angeles. For further details, visit the Getty Center’s website.
The William Morris Gallery, Waltham Forest, London
William Morris (1834–1896).
Waltham Forest Borough Council has recently approved cuts that will radically alter access to the Vestry House Museum and the William Morris Gallery. The gallery holds important records of William Morris’s work as a glass designer and houses the largest Arts & Crafts collection in Europe. The council’s decision has been met with protests in some quarters.
Details of the council’s decision are given on the council’s website. For details of the objections raised, visit www.keepourmuseumsopen.org.uk.
Bruges Exhibition Update
For those who missed the splendid Beauty and Madness exhibition in Bruges (see Vidimus 4), here are the two stained-glass panels that were displayed. They depict St George and St Michael, and are from the chapel of the Guild of Painters and Glaziers in Bruges and were made around 1500.
St George
St Michael
See our Books section for the catalogue of the exhibition, which is still available.
Advance Notice: Major Exhibition in Cologne
A major exhibition of Rhenish stained glass will open at the Schnütgen Museum in Cologne on 3 May and will last until 29 July 2007. It will be a unique opportunity to see stained-glass panels from the cloisters of four Cistercian monasteries – Altenberg, St. Apern, Mariawald and Steinfeld – reunited for the first time since they were sold and dispersed two hundred years ago during the French occupation of the Rhineland. Made in the early sixteenth century, the panels are Renaissance masterpieces.
Poster for the Cologne exhibition of Renaissance stained glass.
The exhibition will include loans from St Mary’s Shrewsbury and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Further details of this important exhibition will appear in the next issue of Vidimus.
Diary Reminders
Stained Glass at the Victoria & Albert Museum
Dr Paul Williamson, Keeper of Sculpture, Metalwork, Ceramics & Glass at the Victoria & Albert Museum, will be the guest speaker at a lecture and supper event at the Worshipful Company of Glaziers on Monday 12 March 2007, starting at 6.15pm. He will talk about the Victoria & Albert Museum’s collections of glass, the current exhibitions, and plans for new galleries to display material not currently accessible. To book a place and for details and information about charges for the lecture contact The Clerk’s Office, Glaziers Hall, 9 Montague Close, London Bridge, London SE1 9DD. Telephone and fax 020 7403 6652, email: info@worshipfulglaziers.com.
Ely Stained Glass Museum Annual Lecture
The Ely Stained Glass Museum’s Fourth Annual Lecture, 2007, will be held at St Ethelburga’s Church, Bishopsgate, London, on 26 March, 2007, at 5.30pm. The subject will be ‘Parish, Community and Faith in Medieval York: All Saints, North Street and its Windows’, and the lecture will be given by David O’Connor, CVMA (GB) author and lecturer at Manchester University. David O’Connor will take a broad view of the parish, the building, and its architecture and imagery. Tickets are available in advance for £4, or on the door for £5. Tea will be served from 4.30pm, and the lecture will follow at 5.30pm. To reserve a ticket, email events@stainedglassmuseum.com.
