Publication Notices

Les vitraux voyageurs. By Yvette Vanden Bemden. Paperback, ebook and PDF, 117 pp. and 20 colour plates. Académie royale de Belgique (L’Académie en poche series, vol. 144), Brussels, 2021, Paperback 7€, ISBN 978-2-8031-0812-1. Ebook and PDF 3.99€, available at https://academie-editions.be/catalogue/449-les-vitraux-voyageurs.html

This small pocket-book is a brief survey of the ways in which stained-glass windows (and their creators) have travelled over time, focusing mainly on those of the Low Countries, but including examples from elsewhere. After a brief introduction, the first chapter deals with the peregrinations of glass-painters and the resultant stylistic cross-fertilisation. The next chapter deals with medieval and renaissance stained glass in the international commerce of those times, that is the commissioning of windows made for one country but produced in another. The next and longest chapter on the movement of windows in and between buildings over the centuries is divided into three sections: the first deals with the movement of windows within the original building; the second, with the displacement of windows to another building, from the sixteenth century to the end of the French occupations in the early nineteenth century, and the third, with the same topic in modern times. These are followed by a brief bibliography and reading list. Despite its shortness, the book covers a wide range of material with many useful examples.

 

 

The Stained Glass Windows of Exeter Cathedral. By Dr Stuart Bird. Cover Silk, 4pp + 64pp., 74 illustrations, (Exeter, Brightsea Print Group 2021) £5 plus postage. ISBN : 978-1-3999-0396-7

Exeter Cathedral has a great historical collection of stained and painted glass, much documented in the Cathedral Archives. There is glass dating from the 14th century in the Great East Window, by Master Walter and Robert Lyen, through to the mid 18th-century enamel painted glass by William Peckitt of York, now in the cloisters, and then the highly decorated mid 19th-century Victorian glass, up to the post war period and beyond, all reflecting the fashion and age in which they were created. 

Up until now there has been no overall guide to this wonderful collection of stained and painted glass readily accessible to worshippers and visitors. The glass has now been brought together in this guide, written in the form of a tour to help visitors, volunteers, and all those with a keen interest in stained glass to look, appreciate, and understand the collection. The guide has been carefully put together by Dr Stuart Bird, a Cathedral Guide, and is beautifully illustrated with William Finnigan’s high quality colour photography. It includes interpretations of the surviving medieval glass courtesy of John Allan, the Exeter Cathedral Archaeologist.

To place an order please contact: shop@exeter-cathedral.org.uk or call 01392-271354.

 

Victorian Stained Glass. By Trevor Yorke. Paperback and Ebook, 64 Pages; fully illustrated throughout. (Shire Publications, Bloomsbury Publishing, publication date: 17 February 2022). Paperback £8.99, ISBN: 9781784424831; Ebook £7.19, ISBN 9781784424862.

Victorian stained glass – magnificent, colourful and artistic – adorns countless British churches, municipal buildings and homes. Across the decades, several artistic movements influenced these designs, from the Gothic Revival, through the Arts and Crafts Movement and into Art Nouveau as a new century dawned. Historian Trevor Yorke shows how craftsmen re-learned the lost medieval art of colouring, painting and assembling stained glass windows – but also, in this age of industry, how windows were templated and mass produced. Showcasing the exquisite glass generated by famous designers such as A.W.N. Pugin, Pre-Raphaelites William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, and by leading manufacturers such as Clayton and Bell, this beautifully illustrated book introduces the reader to many wonderful examples of Victorian stained glass and where it can be found.