Stained Glass

Saving Romanesque masterpieces—”Ancestors of Christ” Stained Glass in Clerestory
(Work to be completed by 2011)

Canterbury Cathedral contains 1200 square metres of stained glass. All of it beautiful, every pane precious, and much of it of outstanding artistic quality. Collectively it is one of the finest assemblages in Europe.

The windows in the Cathedral’s clerestory are among the finest of all—a twelfth century series showing the Genealogy of Christ. It is amazing that the series should have survived the iconoclasts of the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Their preservation may be because the series shows mostly Old Testament figures, Christ’s forbears, who were not thought of as idolatrous, unlike many later Saints.

The figures are based on the Ancestry of Christ as listed in Chapter Three of Luke’s Gospel, and Chapter One of Mark. The quality of the figures - particularly the colouring, and the folds in their clothing - makes them among the finest Romanesque portraits in existence.

The Victorians moved some of the panels out of the Choir and into the Great Western and Southern Windows, where they could more easily be seen. The nineteenth century stained glass restorer Austin Jr. replaced the missing glass with copies and replicas. This work is also of outstanding quality and just as deserving of conservation by our dedicated Stained Glass Studio. 

The South IV window contains the figures of Mattathias and his son Menan. The glazing is leaking heavily, leading to serious decay of surrounding stone and wood. It will cost £30,000 to conserve. 

The South XII window shows the figures of Elmadam and his son Cosam. Over half the panels are medieval and can be dated to the twelfth century. The frame has shrunk over time and the original wedges no longer hold the window securely. The wooden frame has rotted, further threatening the valuable portraits. The cost of conservation is £70,000.

Conserving Christ’s Ancestors: The stained glass windows in the clerestory of Canterbury Cathedral
(Windows to be conserved by the end of 2013)

The window SX will cost £70,000 to conserve. It contains portraits of Jose and Er , two of the series of The Ancestors of Christ dating from the twelfth century, and carefully restored in the nineteenth. The picture below shows how badly some of the surfaces have become corroded.

The window SII shows scenes from the New Testament including a charm-ing portrayal of the Flight into Egypt. It will cost some £70,000 to be fully conserved. The panels sit 100 feet up in the air and are exposed to all the elements, including severe buffeting by winds. Some of the windows are now held in by wedges (below) which were inserted in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.