Details

Object type

stained glass panel

Title

Vision of Zacharius

Place Associated

France, Normandy, Rouen (place of manufacture)

Date

circa 1510

Materials

white, coloured, stained and painted glass, lead

Dimensions

overall: 898 mm x 497 mm x 10 mm

Description

This group comprises eight rectangular lights with shaped tops dedicated to scenes from the life of

John the Baptist. They are (1) the Vision of Zacharias (2) the Visitation showing the Virgin Mary

attended by five angels greeting Elizabeth (3) the Birth and Naming of St John (4) St. John Taking Leave of His Parents (5) Baptising in the Jordan (6) Rebuking Herod, with St. John (7) Salome Dancing

(8) Salome Presenting St. John's Head on a charger to Herodias.

Burrell acquired the set in September 1946 via Wilfred Drake from the collection of Lord Bagot, Blithfield Hall, Staffordshire, where the glass was in the windows of the long gallery on the first floor of Blithfield Hall. To accommodate it, each light had to be divided into two parts to make way for a four-inch stone mullion. when it was bought by William Burrell, through the agency of Wilfred Drake (Fig. App. I.15). Burrell’s starting offer for the stained glass (including four English armorial roundels) was £1500, to include removal and reglazing of the cloister. The glass eventually cost Burrell £850, but when commission and removal expenses were added the total was £1,395 8s. 9d. Drake spent almost a fortnight in September-October, 1946 removing the glass which he subsequently repaired.

The windows had been in Blithfield Hall since 1807 - In the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1807 William Stevenson noted that “Lord Bagot has filled his fine cloister at Blithfield with some brilliant lights of St. Johns Life”. Stevenson had sold these lights to Bagot. The glass was acquired by William Stevenson with his son Seth William, and import was arranged by J.C. Hampp in 1802.

The St John glass probably came from the church of Saint-Jean, Rouen, which was closed in 1793 and later demolished. La Quérière notes that the beautiful painted windows of St. John were all taken away in 1802, during the peace of Amiens, at the cost only of glazing the empty spaces.

These windows relate to a number of other series showing events from the Life of St John the Baptist in France (Eure) Bourg-Achard, Church of Saint-Lo, Conches.en-Ouche, Church of Sainte-Foy, Louviers, Church of Notre Dame, France (Seine-Maritime) Rouen, Church of Saint-Romain, London, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Museum of Art (from Costessey, formerly Saint Pierre du Chatel). In the Church of St Nicholas, Overstone, there is also a single scene showing St John the Baptist preaching in the Wilderness, which, in Mark’s view are a fusion of the styles of Arnoult van Nijmegan and the Saint John the Baptist master.

The donor and his wife, who appear with their son, daughter-in-law and six grandchildren, are presumed to have been merchants of Rouen, but having no heraldic insignia remain anonymous.

Credit Line/Donor

Gifted by Sir William and Lady Burrell to the City of Glasgow, 1944

Collection

Burrell Collection: Stained Glass

ID Number

45.417.a

Location

Burrell Collection