A DUTCH DESIGNER FOR GLASS
The difficulties which confront the student of Dntch
glass painting are formidable and to a large extent insu-
perable- In the case of painting in Holland, Van Mander
lias preserved some data; a certain number of pictures,
which survived the iconolastie outbreak of 1566, can be
traced to their original situation and in some cases 16th
century engravings with the artists’ names hâve enabled
works to be identified. In the case of glass painting almost
everything of the 15th century in churches in Holland has
been destroyed : what survives is mainly in the form of
the small roundels or ruitjen which decorated the houses
of the wealthier burghers, scattered indiscriminately in
the Muséums of Europe with no indication of their original
position, still less of the artists who painted or designed
them, preserved. The investigator is faced with a consi-
dérable mass of material in this form which has to be
sorted and assigned by means of comparison with pic-
tures, with woodcuts and engraving and above ail with
drawings. From the last of these the most is to be hoped
for in the study of Dutch glass painting. A large number
of drawings actually for glass exist and, in the case of
drawings, a grouping according to style is at any rate
possible ; in some cases even the artist can be ascertained.
The method of procedure to be followed should be fairly
simple. Glass paintings executed from cartoons by known
The difficulties which confront the student of Dntch
glass painting are formidable and to a large extent insu-
perable- In the case of painting in Holland, Van Mander
lias preserved some data; a certain number of pictures,
which survived the iconolastie outbreak of 1566, can be
traced to their original situation and in some cases 16th
century engravings with the artists’ names hâve enabled
works to be identified. In the case of glass painting almost
everything of the 15th century in churches in Holland has
been destroyed : what survives is mainly in the form of
the small roundels or ruitjen which decorated the houses
of the wealthier burghers, scattered indiscriminately in
the Muséums of Europe with no indication of their original
position, still less of the artists who painted or designed
them, preserved. The investigator is faced with a consi-
dérable mass of material in this form which has to be
sorted and assigned by means of comparison with pic-
tures, with woodcuts and engraving and above ail with
drawings. From the last of these the most is to be hoped
for in the study of Dutch glass painting. A large number
of drawings actually for glass exist and, in the case of
drawings, a grouping according to style is at any rate
possible ; in some cases even the artist can be ascertained.
The method of procedure to be followed should be fairly
simple. Glass paintings executed from cartoons by known