Feature

From Parrots to Princes: Exhibitions of Contemporary Stained Glass in Late Eighteenth-century London

Joanna Cobb

Joanna completed her MA in art history at Birkbeck College, where she specialised in the exhibition culture of late eighteenth-century London.  Joanna is now preparing her doctoral thesis through the University of Glasgow, which is based around Schomberg House, Pall Mall, and the varied artistic practices to which it bore witness in the late Georgian era.

‘In every street, the word Exhibition’

Stained glass was one of the many attractions of a burgeoning, colourful and very competitive late eighteenth-century London exhibition culture.  Although there had been earlier opportunities for experiencing works of visual art at first hand in public spaces, in venues as diverse as the Foundling Hospital and the Vauxhall pleasure gardens, it was the advent of full-blown exhibitions in the 1760s which really signalled the arrival of public art shows in the capital.  These began in 1760 with the first exhibition of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce, and continued with the establishment of the Society of Artists the following year and the Royal Academy of Arts in 1768, whose first annual show was staged in Pall Mall in 1769, moving to Somerset House in 1780. These shows triggered a veritable outpouring of entrepreneurial artistic ventures, including exhibitions of stained glass, which vied with each other for the attention of members of a London audience prepared to part with a shilling for the privilege of witnessing them. It is not surprising that a writer in the Morning Herald commented in May 1787 that:

At no period do we remember so many Exhibitions at once time as are now open.  In every street, the word Exhibition, in great letters, admittance one shilling, strikes the eye – and at every exhibition we see company.

This kaleidoscopic world was one which Thomas Jervais, James Pearson and Eglington Margaret Pearson, three of the most prominent stained glass artists of the day, embraced wholeheartedly, often with critical success, and sometimes with a royal stamp of approval. Not only were they were represented at Royal Academy and Society of Artists exhibitions, but they staged independent shows, both for marketing purposes as well as direct sales.  Moreover, Jervais’ work featured within other artistic enterprises, such as the strangely titled Eidophusikon, a miniature mechanical theatre, and one of the most popular spectacles in the London of the 1780s and 1790s. Jervais and the Pearsons were capitalising on the current vogue for stained glass, which was encouraged by its use in the architectural schemes of such well-known aesthetes as Horace Walpole, William Beckford and John Soane. James Pearson’s Cobbler whistling to a bird in a cage in the Refectory at Strawberry Hill and his portrait of Archbishop Thomas Becket at Fonthill are examples of the resultant patronage of modern stained glass painters [Fig. 2].

……~~~~~~……~~~~~~……
Mr Jervais

Dublin-born Thomas Jervais developed an early interest in glass painting after experiencing it first hand through a tour of the Netherlands, which inspired him to become a practitioner in the art. He specialised in enamel glass painting, different from medieval practices, which was less translucent and involved treating the glass like a canvas.  Having established his reputation as a glass painter in his native country, he arrived in London around 1770 to seek further patronage. At a time when the home market for commodities was expanding, he quickly found a clientele for his small, intricate panels, which were often copied from popular Dutch, Flemish and Italian artists. He was displaying and marketing his work through exhibitions as early as 1772, when fifteen of his works were on show at the Exeter Exchange on the north side of The Strand. He later established a regular exhibition space in Cockspur Street at the bottom end of The Haymarket.

Jervais’ productions were promoted as suitable for a range of venues, both public and domestic, being ‘calculated for either a Church or a Musick Room’, according to an advertisement addressed ‘To the Curious’ in the Daily Advertiser in April, 1774.   More significantly, perhaps, they were described as ‘entirely new’.  Novelty was perceived as a major selling point, as evidenced by the wide selection of innovative forms of reproduction which came on the market in the late eighteenth century, including mechanical paintings, polygraphs and aquatints.

Jervais was fast establishing a trademark not only in copies of Old Masters, such as David Teniers the Younger and Gerrit Dou, but also for panels that attempted to take advantage of his medium to create spectacular light effects, such as ‘Sunshine, Moonlight, Firelight and Candlelight’. Joseph Wright of Derby had recently popularised dramatic scenes involving lamplight and moonlight through the medium of oil painting. These included his Three Persons Viewing the Gladiator by Candlelight of 1765 and the well-known Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump of 1768, now on view in the National Gallery.  Such works had already been exhibited by the Society of Artists of Great Britain. Given the attractions of Wright’s scenes, it is not surprising to find Jervais including a stained glass copy of one of his atmospheric paintings of a blacksmith’s forge in his fifth exhibition in 1778. Wright’s Iron Forge of 1772, now in Tate Britain, is one of several his paintings on this theme [See Notes]. Such works were popular with other stained glass painters, Eglington Margaret and James Pearson both producing panels after Wright on the same subject in the late 1780s.

Jervais’ enterprise was clearly successful, since he continued staging exhibitions in Cockspur Street throughout the 1770s.  His sixth exhibition was advertised in the Gazeteer and New Daily Advertiser in April 1779, with ‘The Subjects – History, Allegory, Landscape, Sea Views, Frosts, Sun, Moon, Candlelight; particularly the various effects of Sun light expressed in the inside of three different Churches’.  In this way he expanded on the possibilities of demonstrating light effects in stained glass. He also included ‘a Perspective View of Covent Garden,’ and the Genius of Science after Guercino’, providing further proof of his versatility. The reception of this exhibition appears to have been favourable as a review in the Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser for May 1779 demonstrates.  Having commented upon the amount of coverage in the press on the Royal Academy’s exhibition and others in the capital, the writer drew attention to Jervais’ show as ‘one which  not only has as much merit as any, but which is rather more worthy admiration, as it depends altogether on the skill and abilities of a single artist’. Selected for particular praise were ‘His Flemish Church and the inside of the great church at Haerlem, with the full effect of the sun in full splendour’.

New College, Oxford

……~~~~~~……~~~~~~……

Jervais exhibited twenty-five of his glass paintings in Cockspur Street in the spring of 1779.  Two of these were from an ambitious scheme after Sir Joshua Reynolds destined for the west window of New College, Oxford [Fig. 3]. The lower range was to consist of full length panels depicting in the centre the three Christian Virtues, Faith, Charity and Hope, flanked by the four Cardinal Virtues Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Fortitude. Within the classical tradition favoured by Reynolds these were to take the form of female personifications.  Above these was to be a large Adoration of the Shepherds in the style of Correggio, within which on the left-hand side was included a panel containing portraits of Reynolds and Jervais as additional shepherds [Fig. 4].  In his 1779 show Jervais provided a taste of the window by exhibiting Faith and Hope, both delicate yet striking figures gazing resolutely upwards, which would eventually flank Charity [Figs 5 and 6].

The reviewer in the Morning Chronicle described these as ‘incontrovertible proofs that Mr. Jervais can follow the greatest painters of this or any preceding age with such success as to merit almost equal praise’. Coinciding with Jervais’ independent show, his Adoration was on view at the Royal Academy’s annual exhibition in Pall Mall. In this way those with a taste for stained glass had a choice of venues in which to see it displayed and were able to anticipate the grand scheme for New College before it was in situ. Thomas Jervais was also ensuring that his work was kept firmly in the public eye. The exhibitions proved popular with the public, who flocked to see his windows for Oxford whilst they were on view in London. Horace Walpole was impressed with their mode of display in the exhibition, writing in the spring of 1779 that ‘the room being darkened and the sun shining through the transparencies, it realizes the illumination that is supposed to be diffused from the glory, and has a magic effect’. Such use of back lighting for the display of stained glass still proves effective in modern museums such as the Victoria and Albert in London and the Musée de Cluny in Paris.

The following year Jervais was exhibiting more panels for New College in the form of full-length versions of Justice and Prudence [Figs. 7 and 8].  A correspondent in the Morning Chronicle at the beginning of June 1780, declared that these panels ‘go far beyond any thing ever attempted before by any artist whatever, far surpassing even the old glass painting in our Gothick cathedrals’.  Not everyone agreed with this assessment and these comments, purporting to come from ‘An Artist’, need to be treated with caution, as they may be a ‘puff’ or promotion by Jervais himself.

Reception of the new window panels in their Oxford setting was mixed. Popular guides such as the New Oxford Guide and the New Pocket Companion for Oxford were fulsome in their praise.  The latter, published in 1789, admired this ‘new style in Glass-painting, which in beauty and truth of representation exceeds all that have hitherto been seen’.  Horace Walpole, on the other hand, had already voiced his doubts to William Cole in July 1779, commenting that ‘Jarvis’s window for Oxford after Sir Joshua Reynolds will not succeed.  Most of his colours are opaque and their great beauty depending on a spot of light for sun and moon.’ His fears appear to have been justified since, after seeing the completed window in September 1783, he wrote to his friend Lady Ossory:

I went to my passion, Oxford and saw Sir Joshua’s Nativity – but alas. It is just the reverse of the glorious appearance it made in the dark chamber in Pall Mall. It is too high, the antechapel where it is placed is too narrow to see it but foreshortened…I foresaw long ago that Jarvis’s colours, many of them not transparent, could not have the effect of old painted glass.

Royal approval

Jervais continued to show his work in the 1780s.  An entry in the Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser in June 1783 demonstrates the extent to which he had become established on the London exhibition circuit.  This recorded that:

Yesterday their Majesties, the Princess Royal and three of the young princes went to the Royal Academy and Mr. Jervais’s Exhibition of Stained Glass at Messrs. Christie and Ansells great room in Pall Mall.

George III must have been impressed by Jervais’ work since three years later he commissioned him to produce a large-scale Resurrection after a design by Benjamin West for the east window of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor.  The artist was also reaching a wider public outside the capital. In 1784 he held an exhibition in Trumpington Street, Cambridge, substantial enough to run over two floors.  A wide range of genres were represented, including landscape, history and portraiture, as well as marine and genre paintings on the first floor.  On the second was displayed a painted copy in oil of Reynolds’ Adoration which promoted Jervais’ rendition of the same in stained glass in Oxford.  The advantages of Jervais’ practices over those of his medieval counterparts were asserted in a footnote to the catalogue.  This assured ‘the public that these works are executed on totally different principles, and produce different, and incomparably superior effects’. Similar claims were later made for the Pearsons’ work, demonstrating the fascination for enamel glass painting in late Georgian England, which is often at odds with more recent taste for the luminosity of the medieval.  Jervais’ window at Windsor was not to survive in situ beyond the 1860s and has since been lost.

The Eidophusikon and the Vitropyrix

Not content with displaying his wares in the Royal Academy and in solo exhibitions in London and Cambridge, Jervais was also involved in another novel form of show, the Eidophusikon or Representation of Nature.   The invention of Strasbourg-born Philippe- Jacques de Loutherbourg, this was a type of mechanical theatre which was on show in London from the early 1780s. First on view in the artist’s house in Lisle Street off Leicester Square, this was later moved to the Exeter Exchange in The Strand.  Put simply, it created illusory effects using a variety of techniques, including moving pictures, stained glass, three dimensional models, as well as light and sound.  These were used to inspire awe in the viewer by depicting a range of spectacular natural phenomena such as Niagara Falls, storms at sea and the effects of light at different times of day, and also a series of dramatic scenes from Milton’s Paradise Lost [Fig. 9].

Loutherbourg, a Royal Academician since 1781, had already made his name with a series of strikingly original theatre designs at Drury Lane and Covent Garden.  Around forty years later, the artist and engraver W.H. Pyne, under the pseudonym Ephraim Hardcastle, recorded his experience of viewing Loutherbourg’s spectacle. He described how:

Before the line of brilliant lamps, on the stage of the Eidophusikon, were slips of stained glass; yellow, red, green, purple and blue; by the shifting of which, the painter could throw a tint upon the scenery, compatible with the time of day which he represented, and by a single slip, or  their combinations, could produce a magical effect.

It was within this magical environment that Thomas Jervais, another showman of sorts, chose to exhibit some of his stained glass pictures during the daytime, whilst the Eidophusikon was on display in the evening. In keeping with a taste for pseudo-Greek titles, Jervais’ show was known as the Vitropyrix, frequently achieving top billing over the Eidophusikon. Special effects appear to have been a part of both displays, since an advertisement in the Morning Post and Daily Advertiser in June 1785 announced that several examples of the stained glass ‘are exhibited in a novel and heightened point of view, by means of Mirrours and other Optical Glasses’. It seems highly appropriate that Jervais’ displays should be on show within this theatrical environment, since both the Eidophusikon and his work offered drama, illusory effects, and the means to move an audience. The same can be said of several of the Pearsons’ panels which will come under discussion shortly.

The Eidophusikon excited the attention of a number of artists, such as Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, the latter reputedly a spectator on most evenings. This experience has been cited as an important influence on Gainsborough’s experiments with his ‘show box’, a form of peep show involving back-lit painted transparencies, which is now on view in the Victoria and Albert Museum.  However, the writer Edward Edwards in his Anecdotes of Painting also gave Thomas Jervais credit for inspiring the artist, explaining that:

When Mr. Jarvis made an exhibition of some beautiful stained glass, at a room in Cockspur-street, Gainsborough visited it, and was so much struck with the effect of what he saw that, upon his return home, he immediately set himself to construct an apparatus that should diffuse splendour on his pencil, and produce an effect similar to the stained glass which he admired.

As we have seen, Thomas Jervais’ exhibitions of stained glass attracted considerable attention in the 1770s and 1780s.  He was to retire on health grounds around 1790, dying in Windsor in August 1799. His was not the only show of this type, his chief rivals being another native of Dublin, James Pearson, and his wife Eglington Margaret Pearson.

Mr and Mrs Pearson

The couple first came to public attention through the Society of Artists of Great Britain, the work of both artists being well represented in the Society’s exhibitions of 1775, 1776 and 1777.  Whilst James Pearson demonstrated his range including allegory, history and genre, Margaret showcased her trademark bird paintings, such as those of parrots and parakeets. [Fig. 1].  The influence of seventeenth-century Netherlandish artists is evident, partly in terms of subject matter, such as Pearson’s Dutch Toper, but more especially in the landscape settings, as seen in Margaret’s bird paintings.  Although independent artists, the Pearsons also collaborated on some projects, the stained glass copy after Carlo Maratti’s Salutation, shown in 1775 being an example of this. A later joint project was their copy of Guido Reni’s Aurora which was exhibited in London in the summer of 1793.   Margaret was not the only female stained glass painter to exhibit at the Society of Artists.  A Mrs. Hills is recorded as showing three pieces, namely a seascape, a landscape and a moonlit scene in 1778. Both women catered for the market in small domestic panels.

Throughout the 1780s and 1790s the Pearsons exhibited regularly in London at their homes first in Church Street, Westminster, and later in Great Newport Street, at the upper end of St. Martin’s Lane. They also displayed at James Wyatt’s elegant new Pantheon in Oxford Street [Fig. 10]. It was here that throughout the summer of 1781 James Pearson showcased his spectacular Brazen Serpent in the Wilderness, after a design by John Hamilton Mortimer for the east window of the choir in Salisbury Cathedral. Although other panels were on display, the Brazen Serpent was very much the centrepiece of the exhibition, effectively making this one of the growing number of one-picture shows which were becoming popular in the capital.  The American-born artist, John Singleton Copley, had initiated this phenomenon in the spring of 1781 with the highly successful exhibition of his Death of the Earl of Chatham in the Spring Gardens. The Brazen Serpent, which measured twenty-one feet by seventeen, would have required a venue as lofty as James Wyatt’s Pantheon [Fig. 10].

A reviewer in the Morning Chronicle during July 1781 was particularly impressed by the way in which ‘the lead and iron are intirely concealed, so as not to interrupt the outline either of the figures or drapery, by which the whole appears as one entire plate of glass, without joining or division’. Indeed, Pearson’s ingenuity in concealing the leading in his glass panels was made great play of in contemporary advertisements, both in relation to the Brazen Serpent and many of his other exhibits.

A description of the Brazen Serpent in the Salisbury Guide of 1787 gives some idea of the impression that it made.  According to this Mr. Pearson had ‘in point of colouring, and perspective, equalled at least any of his predecessors in the art, and infinitely exceeded them by an invention of his own’ His window is still in situ in Salisbury Cathedral, its rugged, dramatic, even apocalyptic nature well in accord with the eighteenth-century aesthetic of the Sublime [Fig. 11].

In his Anecdotes of the Arts in England, James Dalloway described how ‘Mrs. Pearson, has discovered an equal genius, and they have jointly executed numerous small pieces of very great merit’.  In the spring of 1786 both Pearsons were exhibiting from their house in Westminster.  By this time he had assumed the title of ‘Painter to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales’ and was showing his version of Guido Reni’s St. Michael alongside a range of Margaret’s panels, including some of her Natural History subjects.  Pearson’s royal pretensions are evident from some of his subject matter.  In the summer of 1790, the World singled out ‘a Portrait, size of life, of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, in the character of St. George, from a painting taken of His Highness by James Barry’. The exhibition also included a panel after Sir Joshua Reynolds’ portrait of the prince’s political ally, Charles James Fox. In June 1793, another royal portrait after Reynolds, that of George III, was included in the Pearsons’ show. This life-size rendition, showing the king lavishly enthroned in his coronation robes, is now on view in the Stained Glass Museum in Ely Cathedral.

By this time Margaret Pearson’s oeuvre had developed considerably.  A lengthy entry in the World  for April 1791 included the following information:

Mrs Pearson has compleated that Set of  Pictures, from the Seven famous Cartoons of Raphael, coloured from the originals in the Royal Palace, Windsor…as forming the most capital Set of Pictures for a private Chapel that has ever yet appeared in this species of Painting.

One of these panels, her Miraculous Draft of Fishes, is still on view in Bowood House, Wiltshire. The Windsor connection demonstrates that both Pearsons were keen to promote their royal credentials.  They were also locating themselves firmly within a strong artistic tradition by choosing to produce copies after admired Old Masters such as Raphael and Guido Reni, as well as modern artists including Mortimer, Barry and Reynolds.

A catalogue for the Pearsons’ exhibition at their home in Great Newport Street dating from 1797 illustrates the range of their output since they first began showing their work in London.  Over fifty panels were displayed in two rooms and the hall, representing works after Claude Lorraine, Anthony Van Dyck, Guido Reni, Carlo Maratti, Raphael, Daniele de Volterra, Rembrandt, Nicholaes Bergem, as well as Reynolds and Mortimer. Genres represented included history, landscape, animal paintings, allegory, with also a wide selection of Margaret Pearson’s familiar natural history pictures. Typical of these were several different types of finch, the habitual parrot, a cockatoo and some butterflies, which often made an appearance in her panels. The catalogue also recognised ‘Mr. and Mrs. Pearson’ as joint proprietors of the venture, demonstrating the extent that they had become established as a team on the London exhibition circuit.

Both James and Eglington Margaret Pearson survived well into the nineteenth century, she dying in 1823 and he around the time of Queen Victoria’s accession to the throne in 1837, yet their prime in terms of production and display appears to have been in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. After this their mode of enamel glass painting appears to have gone out of vogue in the light of the Gothic Revival.   Nevertheless, the limited attention which they have subsequently received ought not to obscure the fact that both Jervais and the Pearsons, through their colourful, illuminating and diverse exhibitions of stained glass, contributed in no insignificant way to the vibrant art world of the late Georgian era.

Notes

To see Joseph Wright’s painting, Iron Forge, at Tate Britain, click here.

To see James Pearson’s portrait of George III at The Stained Glass Museum, Ely, click here.

Further Reading

Altick, Richard, The Shows of London, (Cambridge, Massachussetts, and London, 1978).  Chapter 8 provides an overview of eighteenth-century exhibition culture, with stained glass exhibitions on page 111. Chapter 9 deals with the Eidophusikon.

Bermingham, Ann, ‘Gainsborough’s Show Box: Illusion and Special Effects in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 70, Number 2, (2007), pages 203-208.

Bermingham, Ann, ed., Sensation and Sensibility: Viewing Gainsborough’s Cottage Door, (New Haven and London, 2005).  William Vaughan’s essay on ‘Magic in the Studio’, discusses Gainsborough’s show box in connection to both the Eidophusikon and Thomas Jervais’ glass painting.  See pages 173-176.

Cust. L.H, revised Baylis, Sarah, Thomas Jervais, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, www.oxforddnb.com , (online edn. Jan. 2008)

Cust. L.H., revised Baylis, Sarah, James Pearson, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, www.oxforddnb.com , (2004).  Apart from an outline of James Pearson’s career this deals briefly with that of Eglington Margaret Pearson, as well as the collaboration between the two.

Dalloway, James, Anecdotes of the Arts in England, (London, 1800).  The work of both Pearsons, including a commission for Brasenose College, Oxford, is mentioned on page 452.

Easton, James, The Salisbury Guide, (Salisbury, 1787).  Pages 21 and 22 describe James Pearson’s work on the Brazen Serpent in Salisbury Cathedral.

Eavis, Anna and Peover, Michael, ‘Horace Walpole’s Painted Glass at Strawberry Hill, an offprint from  The Journal of Stained Glass, Vol.XIX, No. 3, (1994-1995).

Edwards, Edward, Anecdotes of Painters who have resided or been born in England, (London, 1808). For Thomas Gainsborough’s interest in Jervais’ exhibitions and his showbox, see page 141.

A Gentleman of Oxford, The New Oxford Guide, (Oxford, 1789).  Reynolds’ and Jervais’ window for New College, including the insertion of their portraits as shepherds, is discussed on page 44.

Graves, Algernon, The Society of Artists and the Free Society, 1760-1791, (1907, reprinted Bath, 1969). The Pearsons’ exhibits are listed on page 194, and Mrs. Hills’ on page 118.

Hardcastle, Ephraim, Wine and Walnuts, or After Dinner Chit-Chat, Vol. 1,(London, 1823). Chapter XXI is devoted to the Eidophusikon, including mention of the use of stained glass on page 289.

Hosken, Clifford, ‘An Eighteenth-Century English Woman Glass-Painter’, The Connoisseur, Vol. LXIX,  (July 1924), pages 133-134.  This article arose from the acquisition by the Victoria and Albert Museum of Eglington Margaret Pearson’s Samson after Rembrandt and gives a brief resume of both Pearsons’ careers.

Lane, Geoffrey,“ ‘Curiosities of the Cloister’: A Sale of Stained Glass in 1773, Vidimus, No. 27, (March 2009). This article discusses a display and sale of Netherlandish stained glass staged by Eglington Margaret Pearon’s father, the book seller Samuel Paterson, in the Strand in March 1773.

Lewis, W.S. ed., Horace Walpole’s Correspondence Vol. 33,  with the Countess of Upper Ossory,(London, Oxford University Press, 1965). Letter dated September 9th 1783 concerns the New College glass.  See also letter dated July 12th 1779 in Lewis. ed. Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, Vol.2, with William Cole, (New Haven and London, 1970); and  letter dated October 6th 1785 in Lewis ed., Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, Vol. 39, to Francis Seymour Conway, Marquis of Hertford, (New Haven and London, 1974).

Luckhurst, Kenneth W., The Story of Exhibitions, (London and New York, 1951).  Chapters 3, 4 and 6 cover the advent of public exhibitions, those at the Royal Academy, and the phenomenon of one-person shows respectively.

Peaover, Michael, ‘Horace Walpole’s use of stained glass at Strawberry Hill, The British Art Journal, Vol. V, No. 1, (Spring/Summer 2004), pages 22-29.

Penny, Nicholas, ed. Reynolds, (Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1986.) Fortitude and Justice, for the west window in New College Chapel, Oxford, are discussed on pages 290-291.

Petzold, Andreas, ‘Stained glass in the Age of Neoclassicism: the case of Eglington Margaret Pearson’, The British Art Journal, Vol.II, No. 1, (Autumn 2000), pages 54-60. This  includes a list of extant works and their current locations.

Postle, Martin, Joshua Reynolds: The Creation of Celebrity, (Tate, London, 2005). The commission for New College Chapel, Oxford, its development and the panel containing Reynolds and Jervais as shepherds is examined on pages 84-85.

Snodin, Michael, ed., Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill, (New Haven and London, 2009). For Michael Peover’s short essay on the stained glass see pages 64-65.

Solkin, David, ed., Art on the Line: The Royal Academy’s Exhibitions at Somerset House, 1780-1836, (Courtauld Institute, London, 2001). This ground-breaking exhibition and catalogue contains essays on many facets of exhibition
culture in the late Georgian era, including issues of display, spectatorship and reception.

Wainwright, Clive, The Romantic Interior: The British Collector at Home, 1750-1850, (New Haven and London, 1989).  James Pearson’s glass panels for Horace Walpole are discussed on page 83. For William Beckford’s taste in stained glass, including commissions from Pearson in London and Francis Eginton in Birmingham, see pages 116-117.

Woodforde, Christopher, The Stained Glass of New College, Oxford, (Oxford University Press, 1951). Thomas Jervais’ involvement there, including lengthy correspondence, is dealt with on pages 39-55.