Netherlandish Stained Glass before 1603
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Glasgow Museums has a collection of approximately 40 medieval and Renaissance stained glass panels of Netherlandish origin - an area roughly contiguous with modern day Belgium and the Netherlands. The majority of the examples in the collection date to the sixteenth century, a period in which the region excelled in the production of small painted panels, known as roundels. Unlike much of the monumental glass of the age that was commonly commissioned for ecclesiastical buildings, these more modest panels, executed in a technique called silver or yellow stain, were largely manufactured to cater for the needs of the expanding merchant classes. Made to decorate homes and shops and to be exchanged as gifts, the roundels of the 1500s are often more varied in their iconography than the purely religious glass of the age. Although religious subjects remained popular within domestic spaces throughout the period, other themes, including classical and mythological stories, allegorical imagery and domestic scenes were also translated to secular glass. Often working from contemporary print sources, at their most sophisticated the stained glass artists were capable of producing work that rivalled the detail, subtlety and mastery of perspective seen in the drawing and painting of the age. This mastery of silver stain is also present in larger and more traditional arrangements of stained glass. This is no better demonstrated than in a panel depicting St Nicholas Saving Three Men, commissioned by Nicolaas Ruterius, Bishop of Arras (1501-1509), for the Charterhouse of Lovain at the heart of medieval Flanders. The ornate framing, delicately rendered drapery, elaborately finished vestments and convincing use of perspective, mark this as a particularly accomplished work of the age.
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