Stained glass windows
possibly Bernaert van Orley (Brussels c.1488 - Brussels c.1541)
Category
Stained glass
Date
1522 - 1530
Materials
Stained Glass
Order this imageCollection
Vyne Estate, Hampshire
NT 719818
Caption
This exceptional scheme of early 16th-century stained glass was commissioned sometime before 1533 by William, 1st Baron Sandys (c.1470–1540), who served as Lord Chamberlain to King Henry VIII (1491–1547). It was probably designed for the chapel of The Vyne, his house in Hampshire, where it can be seen to this day. The scheme included scenes from the life of Christ and (unusually) three royal portraits – a young Henry VIII, his first wife Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536), and his sister Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots (1489–1541), together with their patron saints. Sandys could never have known how quickly the design would become outdated: following the annulment of the king’s marriage to Catherine, the monarch famously went on to have five further marriages. The quality and craftsmanship of the glass panels are among the best in Europe, and for a long time they were thought to have been designed by a talented émigré artist. However, recent research has indicated that they were, in fact, crafted by numerous different glaziers, a common practice when a large commission had to be fulfilled.
Summary
Three early sixteenth century stained glass windows, each having six panels. The upper panels show scenes from the passion of Christ; the lower contain portraits of King Henry VIII, his first wife Catherine of Aragon, and his sister Margaret, Queen of Scotland. These windows are considered the most important stained glass in possession of the National Trust, and are amongst the most important glass in the country.
Full description
The early sixteenth century stained glass now in the east windows rivals that commissioned by Henry VIII for King's College Chapel, Cambridge, made in 1515-17 and 1526-47. For brilliance of colour and jewel-like clarity, it has no match in England. The commission of the stained glass, either for The Vyne or initially for the chapel of the Holy Ghost, Basingstoke, together with the tiles for the Tudor house, now also in the Chapel, reveal Sandys as an important patron of foreign craftsmen at a time when a new mercantile élite in the great ports of northern Europe was encouraging a growing trade in luxury goods and ideas between England, Flanders, Germany and Italy. David Joris, a glazier from Bruges who was trained in Antwerp, was one of a group of ten glaziers who were taken into Sandys's service at Calais early in 1522 and came with him to England. They stayed at The Vyne for only a few weeks, probably making preparatory drawings, before Sandys had to return to Calais to prepare for the Emperor Charles V's visit to England. Bernard van Orley (c.1491/2 – 1541), court painter to the Regents of the Netherlands, may have been the chief designer of the Chapel glass, although he is unlikely to have actually painted it. At Brussels he supervised the weaving of tapestries for the Sistine Chapel in Rome from Raphael's famous cartoons (now on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum). Certainly, the monumental figure of St Margaret of Antioch and the delicate blue-green landscapes in the upper windows suggest a close scrutiny of the cartoons, and a departure from the stylistic conventions of fifteenth-century Flemish panel painting, in which van Orley had been trained. The rich abundance of ornament on the fantastical, open loggia structure in the lower scenes remains traditionally Flemish, although indebted to north Italian prints, while the architecture itself is Italian in inspiration. At first sight, the glass seems to be an exact fit, but closer inspection reveals it to have been cut down at the top of some of the lights; it is certainly not in its original state. Although the presence of royal figures sometimes prevented glass from being destroyed during the Reformation, it is unlikely that the windows would have remained untouched through the religious upheavals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The most recent research by Hilary Wayment suggests that the windows were originally part of a larger cycle commissioned by Sandys for the Holy Ghost Chapel, Basingstoke, in the 1520s, when he was refounding the chantry and building the Holy Trinity Chapel there. In 1524 Sandys shipped glass direct from Flanders for the Holy Ghost Chapel, which included more scenes than are now at The Vyne, possibly making a complete cycle of the lives of Christ and the Virgin. Other fragments from the cycle survive in the churches of St Michael, Basingstoke, and Woolbeding, West Sussex. Portraits of Sandys and his wife as donor figures would probably have been included, as these fragments include parts of their personal arms. The glass may have been removed from the Holy Ghost Chapel during the Civil War, when lead was stripped from its roof. It could have been placed in the Chapel by Edward Chute, who owned The Vyne from 1685 to 1722, as the arms of Chute impaled by Keck, marking the union of Edward Chute and Katherine Keck, appear in the top left-hand window. However, in the early seventeenth century some restoration took place, which suggests that it may have been installed here in the 1630s during the last years of Sandys ownership. At this period Archbishop Laud was encouraging the enrichment of churches, and new vestments and other chapel textiles incorporating the Sandys arms from this period survive (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum). The glass was last releaded by Sir Charles Chute in the 1940s. If the glass is a later introduction, what was here originally? Sandys may have had areas of clear glass, including a less ambitious cycle of small-scale biblical scenes and much scattered heraldry. Some of the heraldic fragments now in the Ante-Chapel and those given to St Michael's church, Basingstoke, by Sir Charles Chute, may have been part of this scheme.
Credit line
The Vyne, Chute collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
possibly Bernaert van Orley (Brussels c.1488 - Brussels c.1541), designer
References
Howard and Wilson 2003: Maurice Howard and Edward Wilson, The Vyne: A Tudor House Revealed, The National Trust, London, 2003, p. 55 Wayment 1980: Hilary Wayment, ‘The Stained Glass in the Chapel at The Vyne’, National Trust Studies (London, 1980), 35-48 Wayment 1982: H. G. Wayment, 'The Stained Glass of the Chapel of the Vyne and the Chapel of the Holy Ghost, Basingstoke', Archaeologia 107 (1982): 141-52 Bolland 2024: Charlotte Boland et al, Six Lives, The Stories of Henry VIII's Queens, exh.cat., National Portrait Gallery, London 2024, p. 53, fig. 13.