Arts and Crafts Period Stained Glass

Last week I visited Cliffe Castle Museum in Keighley with my three sons. They enjoyed the art exhibition and geology displays, while I spent most of the visit in the stained glass exhibition.

Regular readers of my blog will know that I have developed a particular interest in the Arts and Crafts movement because I live in a house that was built in 1896-1897 with many Arts and Crafts features, including stained glass windows.

All the stained glass windows in my house were created by piecing together stained glass into a geometric pattern. However, during the 19th century leaders of the Arts and Crafts movement worked to revive the medieval tradition of painted stained glass, making highly artistic stained glass popular. So one of the services provided by the design company William Morris co-founded in 1861 (Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co) was the design and production of stained glass windows. They undertook commissions to produce stained glass for domestic, public and religious buildings. One of their earliest (1862) and most famous stained glass productions is a series of windows presenting the Arthurian legend of Tristan and Isoude, created for Harden Grange near Bingley, the home of Walter Dunlop, a textile merchant. Thos whole series of windows is exhibited at Cliffe Castle Museum with accompanying explanation of the Arts and Crafts context of the design and production methods, as well as the history of the story they present. It is a fascinating exhibit. As well as the main pictorial elements of the windows I love the Arts and Crafts style of the text in the windows, and the little flower decorations used as fillers with the text.

I also love how many of the garments are filled with floral designs to emulate patterned fabric. I think the cloak in this one, from some windows depicting angelic minstrels, could be converted into a lace shawl design. Maybe?