SIR EDWARD BURNE-JONES (1833-1898) FOR MORRIS & CO.
'ST. ANDREW' STAINED GLASS PANEL, 1909
£27,700
Auction: 11 October 2023 at 10:00 BST
Description
stained, leaded and painted glass
Dimensions
176cm high, 44cm wide (frame 185cm x 50cm)
Provenance
Provenance: The Chapel of Cheadle Royal Hospital, Cheshire
Footnote
Note: The contribution to the medium of stained glass by William Morris and his principal collaborator Edward Burne-Jones marked an epoch in its post-medieval development. By the 1890s, the reputation gained by Morris & Co. for their stained glass was such that a number of their patrons exclusively commissioned windows from the firm, to ensure the visual unity of their buildings. One such commission was from Cheadle Royal Hospital near Manchester, who in 1904 instructed Morris & Co. to glaze all of the windows of their new chapel. The glass was installed over four periods (1906, 1909, 1911, and finally in 1915), and this present example, depicting St Andrew, originally formed the left part of a three-light window, with St Matthew in the centre and St Peter on the right-hand side.
This fine example of stained glass can be traced back to a drawing by Burne-Jones (BJ 514) that was first made for a window in St Mark’s Church, New Ferry, in 1876. It was then re-used at Holy Trinity, Sloane Street in London in 1894-95 and Albion Congregational Church in Ashton-under-Lyne in 1896 before it illuminated the chapel at Cheadle. The guiding principles that governed the manufacture of the Cheadle windows can be found in an article by Morris in 1890 in which he stressed the importance of clarity of design and colour, ‘The qualities needed in the design […] are beauty and character of outline […] Whatever key of colour may be chosen, [it] should always be clear, bright and emphatic.’