DOI article:
Crampin, Martin: The Gothic Revival character of ecclesiastical stained glass in Britain
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51154#0029
28
5. David Evans, The Adoration of the Magi, 1846, Church of St Mary, Shrewsbury (Shropshire), detail
of the east window of the Trinity Chapel. Photo: M. Crampin
Revival, set behind a Venetian arch and Corinthian pil-
lars.6 In this and other windows, such as the three chancel
windows of 1844 for Christ Church, Welshpool, no deco-
rative borders have been added, but at the Church of St
Mary, Shrewsbury, a medieval church dating mainly to
the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries, large scenes are
framed by architectural borders, which are more charac-
teristic of the Gothic Revival, although the ornament is
more Renaissance than medieval. Evans again draws on
contrasting sources: The Adoration of the Magi is a copy
of a sixteenth-century window from a monastery at Aers-
chot, Belgium, restored by Evans with new glass for Rugby
School chapel,7 while the scene of Christ blessing children
adapts the composition by the Nazarene artist Friedrich
6 Remarkably, for a window that characterises pre-Gothic Revival
nineteenth-century stained glass, it replaced an earlier window by
Francis Eginton, made only about fifty years previously.
71 am grateful to Aidan McRae Thomson for the identification of
the source of this image. Nikolaus Pevsner incorrectly identifies
the original as by Murillo in The Buildings of England: Shropshire,
London, 1958, p. 255.
Overbeck, broadening it out across three lights [Fig. 5].
At West Felton, Shropshire, a set of six post-Resurrection
scenes with fully coloured backgrounds are contained
within the window lights but have elaborate coloured me-
dieval canopies over each scene, creating an uneasy re-
lationship between the Gothic architectural framing and
the scenes themselves, which are more reminiscent of six-
teenth-century Flemish and German stained glass.
The use of coloured glass to achieve bright and trans-
parent colour was a method familiar to David Evans from
his work restoring medieval and Renaissance stained
glass. Evans demonstrated his ability to reproduce earlier
styles when required to do so, and the work of Betton &
Evans in replacing the late fourteenth-century east win-
dow of Winchester College Chapel in 1821 with their own
copy is well known.8 Evans restored important examples
of medieval stained glass, such as the fourteenth-century
east window now at the Church of St Mary, Shrewsbury,
and the fifteenth-century glass at the Church of St Lau-
rence, Ludlow, supplementing the medieval glass with his
8 M. Harrison, Victorian Stained Glass, pp. 16-17 (as in note 4).
5. David Evans, The Adoration of the Magi, 1846, Church of St Mary, Shrewsbury (Shropshire), detail
of the east window of the Trinity Chapel. Photo: M. Crampin
Revival, set behind a Venetian arch and Corinthian pil-
lars.6 In this and other windows, such as the three chancel
windows of 1844 for Christ Church, Welshpool, no deco-
rative borders have been added, but at the Church of St
Mary, Shrewsbury, a medieval church dating mainly to
the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries, large scenes are
framed by architectural borders, which are more charac-
teristic of the Gothic Revival, although the ornament is
more Renaissance than medieval. Evans again draws on
contrasting sources: The Adoration of the Magi is a copy
of a sixteenth-century window from a monastery at Aers-
chot, Belgium, restored by Evans with new glass for Rugby
School chapel,7 while the scene of Christ blessing children
adapts the composition by the Nazarene artist Friedrich
6 Remarkably, for a window that characterises pre-Gothic Revival
nineteenth-century stained glass, it replaced an earlier window by
Francis Eginton, made only about fifty years previously.
71 am grateful to Aidan McRae Thomson for the identification of
the source of this image. Nikolaus Pevsner incorrectly identifies
the original as by Murillo in The Buildings of England: Shropshire,
London, 1958, p. 255.
Overbeck, broadening it out across three lights [Fig. 5].
At West Felton, Shropshire, a set of six post-Resurrection
scenes with fully coloured backgrounds are contained
within the window lights but have elaborate coloured me-
dieval canopies over each scene, creating an uneasy re-
lationship between the Gothic architectural framing and
the scenes themselves, which are more reminiscent of six-
teenth-century Flemish and German stained glass.
The use of coloured glass to achieve bright and trans-
parent colour was a method familiar to David Evans from
his work restoring medieval and Renaissance stained
glass. Evans demonstrated his ability to reproduce earlier
styles when required to do so, and the work of Betton &
Evans in replacing the late fourteenth-century east win-
dow of Winchester College Chapel in 1821 with their own
copy is well known.8 Evans restored important examples
of medieval stained glass, such as the fourteenth-century
east window now at the Church of St Mary, Shrewsbury,
and the fifteenth-century glass at the Church of St Lau-
rence, Ludlow, supplementing the medieval glass with his
8 M. Harrison, Victorian Stained Glass, pp. 16-17 (as in note 4).