Stained glass window
Category
Glass
Date
circa 1856
Materials
glass, lead, wood
Order this imageCollection
Mount Stewart, County Down
NT 1221495.3
Summary
Right window depicting Adam and Eve leaving the Garden of Eden. One of three stained glass windows above the alter in the Chapel GR. 32, with a central subject. Constructed c. 1856 most likely by the firm of William Willement. The central medallion comprises a scene of Adam and Eve. The glass is basically fifteenth century work, almost certainly Swiss or German, though with many alterations and intrusions. The ‘garments’ of leaves in a sharp green colour are entirely an 1850s contribution, possibly in response to Victorian modesty. Apart from this, the figure of Adam, (the left hand figure), contains the original head and part of the chest, plus both hands and the legs, except where the panel has been cut down on the left hand side. The head is particularly fine, but the fact that the Adam figure has long hair seems to have led to some confusion, as the nineteenth century restorers have put an inappropriate male head on the body of Eve. This is a copy of a mediaeval head, but in a technique completely out of keeping with the rest of the panel and in a pink glass at odds with the clarity of the original glass, largely colourless. It is also used with the painted surface on the outside, meaning that it is back to front, and cannot be reversed. The body of Eve is more complete than Adam, with only part of the leg, and the ‘skirt’, being replacements. Nevertheless, the disastrous head destroys all credibility of the panel.The windows consist of an overall background of diamond quarries, with 15th.century painted motifs in two patterns, while the borders consist of painted crowns, alternating with coloured blocks of ruby in the left hand and right hand lights, and blue in the centre. Within this general arrangement are small decorative motifs in the upper and lower halves of each of the side lights in each window, and medallions containing subjects in the centre of the lights, two of which are historic European glass, believed bought as a single lot by the owner at the time. All three windows are set into very substantial wooden frames, mounted on the inside of conventional sash windows. The windows consist of an overall background of diamond quarries, with 15th.century painted motifs in two patterns, while the borders consist of painted crowns, alternating with coloured blocks of ruby in the left hand and right hand lights, and blue in the centre. Within this general arrangement are small decorative motifs in the upper and lower halves of each of the side lights in each window, and medallions containing subjects in the centre of the lights, two of which are historic European glass, believed bought as a single lot by the owner at the time. All three windows are set into very substantial wooden frames, mounted on the inside of conventional sash windows.
Provenance
Transferrred to the care of the Natioanl Trust as part of the transfer of Mount Stewart house in 1976.