the dark american stained glass the tiffany...

The Stained Glass Quarterly272

Recently, while doing researchingon a Tiffany window for a Presbyterianchurch in Galveston, Texas, I becameintrigued in the fledgling start-up yearsof The Tiffany Glass Company, and, inparticular, one window: The GoodShepherd memorial window.

The Presbyterian church hadrecently discovered correspondencefrom 1888 between the church and TheTiffany Glass Company in the island’sRosenberg Library concerning the com-missioning of the Sarah Barker Perrymemorial window, The Good Shepherd.Delving through the New York Timesarchives I discovered several old newsitems that helped to paint a picture of theearly years of the Tiffany GlassCompany. The long-forgotten articles,like bread crumbs, linked together pastevents that shed plausible light on how awealthy widow from First PresbyterianChurch in Galveston, Texas, wouldcome to commission The Tiffany GlassCompany in New York City to designand fabricate a memorial window forher beloved mother in 1888.

Some refer to the early years of theAmerican stained glass movement as the“dark ages of American stained glass”— the years from 1879 to 1890. As withany movement, it was the beginning of ajourney… like a steam locomotivepulling slowly away from the station,gaining traction and momentum withevery stroke of the engine. The year1888 was a busy year for Tiffany GlassCompany; it had been just two yearssince incorporation in mid-December of1885, and Tiffany’s newly formed com-pany was gaining momentum with eachcompleted commission.

The New York Times edition ofJanuary 25, 1886 reported in its “ArtNotes” column that “The Tiffany GlassCompany has taken the place of Louis

C. Tiffany & Co. Mr. Tiffany is thepresident; Pringle Mitchell, the son of‘Ik Marvel,’ is the manager; JohnCheney Platt the treasurer; and John DuFais the secretary. Cartoons by the fol-lowing artist will be used in the glass-work of this company: Messers. Blum,F.S Church, Colman, Longfellow, WillH. Low, Millet, Tiffany, Vedder andDora Wheeler.”

Tiffany Glass would write of thenewly formed company, “Although thecompany is called ‘The Tiffany GlassCompany,’ its name is closely associatedwith a vast amount of other decorativework, which, while also controlled by it,is conducted under a separate depart-ment”.

Through my research, I happenedupon an old publication from 1889,Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 35, inwhich C. Hanford Henderson from thePhiladelphia Manual Training Schoolwrote an article titled “History of aPicture Window.” In the same publica-tion, Tiffany Glass Company ran a longarticle-like advertisement simply titled“Memorial Windows.”

The article and the ad are signifi-cant, both working hand-in-glove to laythe groundwork for making claims —either real or manufactured by Tiffany’smasterful use of the press — thatAmerican glass was superior to theusual painted glass of Munich andLondon, which during this time domi-nated the stained glass market inAmerica. Tiffany would also cite thatsince the “Centennial” (Philadelphia,1876) concerning art work “… peoplehave started out upon what may becalled the most remarkable educationalmovement ever seen.” The article andadvertisement read as an educationalprimer, introducing the public to this“New Glass” style using not paint but

introducing the making of “storied win-dows” with “Opalescent Glass.”

“It is not in our churches alone that‘storied windows’ are so valuable. Thenew methods of making glass enable theartist to reproduce designs in a free andunconventional manner hitherto impos-sible with the painted glass,” said aTiffany Memorial Window advertise-ment from 1888 produced by the TiffanyGlass Company.

On the front cover of PopularScience and in the dead center of thememorial window advertisement, copywritten 1888, is an enhanced photo of aGothic arched Good Shepherd windowmade in a “mosaic style” of leadedglass. Tiffany is quoted as having said“mosaics are the parent of stainedglass”; considering this then, the newAmerican School of glass began produc-ing what was in essence, illuminatedglass “mosaics.”

Tiffany must have been pleasedwith this Good Shepherd window, as hebegan using it as the company’s flagshipexample of a memorial window. Theimage used in this article, except for theshape of the frame, is a dead ringer forthe Galveston Good Shepherd window.Obviously this wasn’t his only GoodShepherd window fabricated in 1888.

The first innocuous mention of aTiffany Good Shepherd window washidden amongst a long list of announce-ments in the New York Times’ February26, 1888, “Art Notes:”

… John Donahue has modeled forthe executive chamber in the BostonStatehouse a bust of Gov. Ames ofMassachusetts

“At Rome the forum Palatine andBaths of Caracalla are to be planted withtrees and embellished in various ways soas to form a public garden.

THE DARK AGE OF AMERICAN STAINED GLASSThe Tiffany Glass Company 1888: A Productive Year

by Bryant J. Stanton

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The Stained Glass Quarterly 273

“The Tiffany Glass Company has finished for Mr.S.R. Van Duzen a stained glass window representing theGood Shepherd. It is a memorial window for achapel nearElmira, N.Y.…”

Elmira, NY, and Horseheads, NY, are two towns veryclose together, when the Duzer Chapel was razed, theGood Shepherd window was relocated into the new FirstPresbyterian Church in Horseheads. The New York Timesmisspells Duzer as Duzen;

From the memorial name plate:In Memory of

Susan Rachael • Sayre • Van DuzerOct • 13th • 1825 - Feb • 18th • 1873

Selah • R • and • Catherine • M • Van Duzer A.D. 1888

Interestingly, I found Selah R. Van Duzer had openeda drug store in New York City in 1849. He was a distrib-utor of matches and patent medicines, and had a productof his own: Mrs. S. A. Allen’s Hair Restorer. It is possiblethat, with both the Tiffanys and Selah Duzer having busi-nesses in New York City, Selah would have been familiarwith Tiffany’s family and son Louis’s early work in glass;this was the first of Tiffany’s Good Shepherd windowsmade wholly in a new mosaic style of stained glass.

The next announcement is on June 6, 1888, about amemorial window Tiffany had just finished in honor ofhis late friend and client President Chester A. Arthur;before President Arthur would move into the WhiteHouse, he had Tiffany remodel and decorate several ofthe White House rooms. The New York Times news arti-cle further documents that Tiffany Glass Company wasbusily producing memorial window in 1888:

In Pres. Arthur’s HonorThe memorial window to Pres. Arthur that will be

placed by his friends in Trinity Church, Lenox, Mass., hasjust been completed by the Tiffany Glass Company.

It is nine feet high and five feet wide, and containsseveral thousand pieces of glass, put together so as togive the desired effect without painting.

The background is deep blue, gradually growinglighter toward the top, where the seven-branched candle-stick is introduced, with Alpha and Omega on either side.

In the middle, there appears a golden cross, sur-rounded by vines bearing clusters of grapes, and withfour white doves perched upon the branches. At the baseis a panel of Titan red. Surrounded by dark amber jewels,and upon which is described the following: “In loving

Tiffany’s Good Shepherd window at FirstPresbyterian Church, Galveston, Texas

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memory of Chester Alan Arthur, twenty-firstPresident of United States. Born Oct. 5, 1830, diedNov 18, 1886. ‘And finally after this life to attaineverlasting joy and felicity through Jesus Christ,our Lord, amen.’”

The article, in describing the window, high-lights the new use of jewels; the use of jewels wasbrought out in Tiffany’s advertisement: “…Jewel-work that sparkles in every color and shape is oftenused in domestic glass with delightful results…”

This next press release that caught my attentionand further piqued my growing curiosity about theGood Shepherd window comes from the New YorkTimes edition of June 7, 1888:

Three Memorial WindowsThree handsome examples of artwork in

stained glass were privately exhibited at the studiosof The Tiffany Glass Company yesterday.

All three memorials are windows for churches.The first of them is [important because it is to

serve as] a window to be placed in the ProtestantEpiscopal Church at Lenox in memory of Pres.Arthur.

The design of this is conventional: a cross, withdoves and large bunches of purple grapes, but thetreatment is felicitous. The colors are exquisite. Thewindow bears the inscription: “In loving memory ofChester Alan Arthur. Twenty-first president of theUnited States,” with the dates of his birth and deathand a scriptural text.

A large window designed for Unitarian churchin Springfield, Mass., is perhaps the handsomestspecimen of stained-glass work for church use yetproduced in this country.

The subject is the Good Shepherd. The figure ofChrist is of commanding stature, and both the poseand the expression of the figures are extremely nat-ural. The artist has got as far as possible from theconventional while preserving the dignity of thesubject. The colors in the robe beautifully blended,and there is a pleasing contrast of the red tones inthe garment with the green of the surface foliage.The halo is also treated in a masterly manner. Theeffect of this window as sunlight falls through it isone of the most beautiful yet simplest today, but thework of selection and putting together the almostnumberless pieces of glass was prodigious.

The third window, for the chancel of theEpiscopal Church at Islip, has the figure of ChristGood Shepherd, First Presbyterian Church, Detail



with hands outstretched. The symbolismis carried out in the resurrection liliesgrowing by his side. In the harmoniousarrangement of the colors, the work onthis window is quite as commendable asthe others.

There it was — “were privatelyexhibited” — we have record that theGalveston widow Mrs. Catherine Ballwas in New York City on June 6th,1888, from correspondence between sheand Mr. Trueheart, the head of thechurch’s building committee concerningher purchasing a memorial window. It isvery reasonable that she attended thisexhibit at the Tiffany Glass Companyand saw for the first time the GoodShepherd window.

In the publication in PopularScience Monthly, Volume 35, January1889 of the article “Glass-Making II,”the black and white photograph of theGothic Arched Good ShepherdWindowis interesting in that it appears to betaken not in an architectural setting butmore from a formal studio setting for aportfolio photo of a window that Tiffany

could use in advertising. Knowing thatthe Good Shepherd window beingexhibited was for the Church of theUnity, I searched for photos of thechurch; sure enough, the SpringfieldChurch of the Unity’s windows weregothic arched windows, and this left lit-tle doubt the Good Shepherd windowexhibited by Tiffany on June 6, 1888,was the very window Mrs. Ball sawwhile in New York.

Henderson’s article gives a littlemore insight into this window and intro-duces the notion of reproducing a suc-cessful design:

“Where the design for a window isordered and paid for by the purchaser ofthe window, it is, of course, impossibleto secure a duplicate; but where a pic-ture that is already common property isreproduced, the work may be severaltimes repeated.

Thus “The Good Shepherd," a verysatisfactory figure of the Christ takenfrom the well-known painting byFrederick J. Shields, has been repro-duced in glass three times, and now

adorns as many churches in differentparts of the country. It is too beautiful aconception to be rendered any lesspleasing by this repetition. In all cases,the patterns and other needed guides arepreserved, so that, should the occasionarise, a picture-window once executedmay be readily duplicated.”

In his article, Henderson discussesthe differences between a custom win-dow commission and fabricating multi-ple windows derived from “commonproperty,” such as Hoffmann Biblepaintings or Gustave Dore, for example,versus original artwork produced byTiffany Glass Company.

Popular Science Monthly recordsmore of Tiffany Glass Company’sachievements in 1888: “The TiffanyCompany recently reproduced GustaveDore’s famous picture ‘Christ leavingthe Praetorian’ for a church memorialwindow, the entire piece being executedin pure mosaic, with the exception of thefaces and hands. The dimensions of thistruly magnificent work of art are twentyby thirty feet. It is the most ambitious

The 1888 Tiffany Good Shepherd windows from left to right: First Presbyterian Church, Galveston, Texas; Church of theUnity, Springfield, Massachusetts; The Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, Buffalo, New York; First Presbyterian Church

Horseheads, Elmira, New York. Far right: the 1864 Good Shepherd illustration by Frederick J. Shields.



window ever attempted in America, and,indeed, the largest opalescent piece inthe world.”

Tiffany’s Christ Leaving thePraetorium (sic) was installed in St.Paul’s Episcopal Church, Milwaukee,Wisconsin in 1888.

The first Good Shepherd windowwas essentially made eight years afterTiffany was granted a patent on the useof opalescent glass and the plating ofglass layers with air space between theglass layers. By the printing of the arti-cle in January of 1889, the GoodShepherd window will have been“reproduced in glass three times.”

The first of Tiffany’s windows touse The Good Shepherd imagery wasmade for the “S.R. Van Duzen

Memorial” in a chapel near Elmira, NYon New York State’s southern bordernear Pennsylvania in February 1888.Presumably, the second, for theEpiscopal Church of the Good Shepherdin Buffalo, NY, the Episcopal Churchwindow is an exact copy of the Duzerchapel window except for the glassdesign framing the Good Shepherdimagery.

The Episcopal Church of the GoodShepherd in Buffalo, NY, was complet-ed in 1888 in a Romanesque style fol-lowing a Richardsonian design done bythe architectural firm of Silsbee andMarling. The interior was elegant in itssimplicity, reflecting the Arts and Craftsmovement. Interestingly, H.H.Richardson’s first project was theChurch of the Unity; his unique design

style became known as “Richardsoniandesign.”

The Good Shepherd windowbecame a memorial to the parishfounder, Elam R. Jewett, given by hisnephews and nieces.

In Memory ofElam R. Jewett

Born Dec 10th 1810- Died Jan 10th, 1887

From the church’s website:“The center light represents the

Good Shepherd carrying two lambs, andwith His flock around Him; the side-lights are vine tracery with grapes andbirds in the richest colors in convention-al designs. The head, hair and neck ofthe figure, delicate in coloring and anexquisite example of portraiture, are all

Good Shepherd, First Presbyterian Church, Galveston, Texas, Dedication Plate Detail



on one section of glass. The two sidewindows are filled with a conventionalgrapevine design, glowing with jewelsand rich color.”

Looking at the photo of the Churchof the Unity window and comparing it toTiffany’s first two Good Shepherd win-dows, it is noticeably a wider windowthan the other two and is configuredwith a gothic arch; an old photo of theChurch of the Unity shows the church tohave had similar arched windows.Unfortunately the church was razed in1961 for the town’s public library’sparking lot. The Church of the Unity,built between 1866 and 1869, was anarchitectural landmark, as it was the firstbuilding to be designed and built by thenow well-known architect Henry

Hobson Richardson or H.H. Richardson,a Harvard graduate.

From The Unitarian, vol 3. 1888:Springfield Mass.–The church of theUnity is to have six handsome memorialwindows. The first of these was receiveda few weeks ago, and was erected byHon. J. A. Rumrill, in memory of GraceRumrill Miller and Charles P. Miller. Ithas for its subject the Good Shepherdand has been described as perhaps thehandsomest specimen of stained glass-work for church use yet produced in thiscountry…

The photo in the Popular Sciencearticle doesn’t show a dedication plate;curious to see if there were any clues towho these people were, I sifted throughthe NYT archives for the Rumrills andMillers around this time, I discovered

the back story behind the memorial win-dow to be a very sad and tragic storywhen I pieced together the three articles,the last being their obituary. Mr. andMrs. Charles P. Miller both died on thesame day in their home on August 22,1887, of pneumonia, leaving behind fiveyoung children. The husband, Mr.Miller, “caught a cold” while playingtennis, which quickly turned into pneu-monia; Mrs. Miller wore herself out car-ing for him and succumbed to pneumo-nia as well, both passing within hours ofeach other. Charles P. Miller, an attor-ney, was at one time a councelor to the(Theodore) “Roosevelt InvestigatingCommittee,” a committee assigned tolook into the living and working condi-tions of the poor in New York City and

Good Shepherd, First Presbyterian Church, Galveston, Texas, Lead Detail



champion them through legislativereform.

It is also interesting to note thatanother photo of an arched window,Faith, Hope and Charity, featured in thePopular Science Monthly article high-lighted in various stages of construction,was also for the Church of the Unity,commissioned by Mrs. H. B. Burt andMrs. W. H. Wesson in memory of Mr.and Mrs. Henry Smith. By the comple-tion of the church, Tiffany would not becommissioned to fabricate six originalmemorial windows but would go on tomake in all 10 memorial windows forthe Church of the Unity, with the 11thTiffany window coming from a 1929merger of St. Paul’s Episcopal Churchand Unity. The Resurrection Windowwas moved from St. Paul’s to theChurch of the Unity.

“A very beautiful window designedby Mr. E. P. Sperry — “ Faith, Hope,and Charity” — and recently completedas a memorial window for the Unity

Church at Springfield, Mass., sprangfrom a thought suggested by aChristmas card.” The New York Timescredits the design to Fredrick Wilson ofTiffany Glass Company.

I contacted Gloria Kordsman at theHarvard Divinity School Library andasked if they had any record on handabout the Church of the Unity stainedglass. She told me they knew very littleabout the windows after the church wastorn down. However, she did send me ascanned 1929 book by Guy Kirkham onthe Unity memorial windows. The pho-tos in the book of the Good Shepherdand Faith, Hope and Charity memorialwindows confirmed the windows fea-tured in Popular Science Monthly wereone and the same. I discovered from thephoto in the Kirkham book the UnityGood Shepherd had no dedication plate.Another window in the book caught myeye, The Holy Night. It looked familiar,and it too was in the Popular Sciencearticle, — a photo of a Tiffany bench

mechanic is shown soldering the exteri-or side of this window! Three of the sixChurch of the Unity memorial windowswere in this publication.

My next call was to the SpringfieldPublic Library, who passed me onto thetown’s Lyman & Merrie Wood Museum.I spoke with Maggie Humberson, whotold me they, too, knew little of whathappened to the 14 church windows,except for two, one of which wasdesigned by Edward Simmons, TheLight Bearer, circa 1895 windowFabricated by Tiffany Glass andDecorating Company. This window theydid know about; it had been restored andis on display in their George WalterVincent Smith Art Museum. (See TheStained Glass Quarterly, Spring 1999).The other window was by John LaFarge,Rebecca at the Well; it was moved in1962 to First Unitarian UniversalistChurch in Springfield, MA, on PorterLake Drive.

Good Shepherd, First Presbyterian Church, Galveston, Texas, Jewel Detail



Local Springfield talk suggests thatthe windows were sold in 1961, whenthe church was razed. Supposedly, thewindows were relocated to a restaurantin either St. Louis or somewhere in theSouthwest; in any case, as the storygoes, the windows were crated up andplaced on a train bound for their newhome. While in route, the train wrecked,and the windows were destroyed.Another account claims they were crat-ed up and stored in the basement of achurch member’s office building. Stillanother story is they were simply soldoff and dispersed or they were stolen. Ipersonally find it strange that if anyhave survived that none of these 13 win-dows have shown up over the past 52years.

Tiffany’s fourth Good Shepherdwindow would be for The FirstPresbyterian Church of Galveston, TX.

The window was completed in late1888, after the Popular Science Monthlyarticle was written and went to pressprior to January 1889. Mrs. Ball placedthe order with Tiffany Glass Companyby the end of June 1888, for a Memorialwindow in honor of her mother SarahPerry:

In Loving Memory of Sarah Barker PerryBorn Aug 13 1796 Died Jan 15 1861(sic)

The chair of the First PresbyterianChurch building committee, Mr.Trueheart, received correspondencefrom “The Tiffany Glass Company Inc.,333 & 335 Fourth Ave., New York,U.S.A.” typewritten on a very plain let-terhead, dated June 30, 1888. This letterfrom the Rosenberg Library is difficultto read clearly, but the part that is legiblereads like this:

“Dear Sir: ––“We have taken an order for Mrs. S.

C. Ball of Galveston for a memorialwindow of the Good Shepherd. Mrs.Ball tells us that if we write to you, youwill be good enough to see that we getthe necessary measurements. Will you,therefore, be good enough to have thesize of the window (the second one fromthe Pulpit facing south) sent us, and alsothe distance from the bottom of the win-dow to the floor… Mrs. Ball tells us thatthere are some other windows contem-plated in the same church. We hope thatwe may have an opportunity of makingdesigns for them. The window Mrs. Ballhas ordered is an extremely beautifulone, and we believe it would be a sourceof satisfaction and pleasure to your com-munity.”

The letter mentions “other windowscontemplated in the same church.” As

Good Shepherd, First Presbyterian Church, Galveston, Texas, Detail



with any competitive business, TheTiffany Glass Company, having gleanedfrom Mrs. Ball knowledge of other win-dows in the church, wished to seize theopportunity to get their company’s footfurther in the door by providing designsand bids; for the time being, this wouldbe the only window Tiffany would dofor the church. Later, he would maketwo more memorial windows.

The Evolution of the 1888 GoodShepherd Windows

The evolution of the four GoodShepherd windows in 1888 is noticeablefrom the first two windows to the fourthas Tiffany continues to tweak the design,by simplifying some areas and by addingmore details to other areas. Noticeable arethe number of sheep that decrease fromten in the Elmira and Buffalo windows tojust five in the Church of the Unity andthe Galveston Windows, where Tiffanyalso adds more detail to the horizon using

foliage, water, and trees. The sky glasstransitions from the white in his halo toblue to the green in the trees; in the earli-er windows, the halo transitions fromwhite to a simpler wispy blue sky glass.

The Jesus figure holding the twolambs in his arms in the Elmira andBuffalo windows both have lambs withlonger, dangling legs, whereas theGalveston window shows the lamb gaz-ing up at Jesus with its hind legs drawn inand tucked up.

By 1893, Tiffany, in another similarGood Shepherd window for St. Luke’s inDubuque, Iowa, had flipped the imageryand added in much more foliage abovethe head of Jesus and returned to using thelamb with longer dangling legs. In all ofthe above-mentioned windows except forthe Galveston window, the faces of Jesusare very similar as if they were painted bythe same painter or at least in the samestyle. The Galveston window shows Jesuswith a fuller, more round beard as

opposed to the sharper, thinner beard inthe other windows, his nose is less sharp,and his eye lid is not as puffy. This is pos-sibly nothing more than the result of thebrushwork and style of another glasspainter, which, given the number of artistsin Tiffany’s studio, is very possible. Thepaint style is “crisper” with darker linesand cross-hatching and the paint tonesdiffer from the others. Hendersondescribes the facial painting in hisPopular Science Monthly article:

“One of the finest examples of themodern school of painting on glass is tobe found in the face of The GoodShepherd, in which nearly every possiblecolor has been used. At a distance one isnot conscious of any particular color, butis attracted by the intense life and loveshown in the face. Rather bold expedientsare often employed to secure these strik-ing effects. In one face, whose eyes weremore than usually expressive of life, the


result was obtained by bands ofbright green bordering both eye-lids.”

It is quite possible the differ-ences between the Good Shepherdwindows came from changes Mrs.Ball wanted after viewing theChurch of the Unity memorial win-dow. She, after all, was there inTiffany’s studio ordering her moth-er’s memorial window, so shecould afford to spend a little extratime working with the studio tomassage the window design a bitmore to her liking. Out of the fourGood Shepherd windows fabricat-ed by Tiffany Glass Company in1888, Mrs. Ball’s window was byfar the most ornate, beautifullydetailed with the dedication panelbeing particularly complicated.

The Unity Good Shepherdwindow had a scripture with verybold and pronounced block letter-ing following the window’s Gothic

arch. From the photo, it is impossible to tell if the letteringis hand painted or if the glass is acid etched into flashedglass. Contrast this to the Galveston window, which uses thesame scripture, in a thin delicately etched font out of flashedglass plated over a streaky, greenish-brown glass, obscure andalmost lost above the foliage in which one has to search to see.The Scripture, taken from Isaiah 40:11, reads: “He Shall Feed HisFlock Like A Shepherd And Shall Gather His Lambs In His ArmsAnd Carry Them In His Bosom.” Is the same in both windows,except for a slight variation the Unity window that reads “…WithHis Arm…” versus “…In His Arms…” in the Galveston window.The New York Good Shepherd windows do not reference anyscriptures.

The dedication plate in the hopper of the Galveston GoodShepherd window is extremely detailed, mosaic-like with the tini-est, innumerable, thumbnail pieces of varying cobalt-blue glassesleaded into the background. In the memorial lettering, each letteris made up of very thin individual pieces of leaded golden glassabove a horizontal spray of white lilies. This was achieved all inlead using the thin lead cameing; Tiffany would start using deli-cate copper foiling in assembling his windows around 1900.

Framing the memorial plate is a frame of rough-cut round andelongated elliptical amber gold jewels chained together. The glassdesign above the memorial inscription is an ornate row of inter-locking calligraphic leaded-glass design. Below this row are tall,

round cone-shaped pressed red jewels. Above the soldier row areround rough-cut jewels with intricately tooled, incised lead work.In contrast, the memorial plate in the Duzer window is a simplebut neatly flourishing hand-lettered and painted memorial plate,which is unusual for a Tiffany inscription. In later years, Tiffanywould simplify memorial plates and the inscriptions by acid etch-ing flashed glass, removing all of the flashing, leaving the letter-ing, plating the etched glass over a layer of opalescent glass.

There is no doubt that the First Presbyterian Church ofGalveston houses one of Tiffany’s earlier works in church memo-rial windows — the oldest in the state of Texas and very possiblehis first memorial window installed south of the Mason-Dixonline. The design of the Good Shepherdwindow is closely based onan illustration by Frederick Shields that was used in illustrating apublication of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress in 1875.

Tiffany’s designers would, in later works, adapt BernhardPlockhorst’s painting The Good Shepherd to produce another

Good Shepherd, First Presbyterian Church,Galveston, Texas, Detail



completely different Good Shepherd win-dow with Jesus facing the viewer face onas opposed to the Good Shepherd’s tiltedprofile pose in Shield’s illustration. By1910, Tiffany Studios would have pro-duced close to 100 Good-Shepherd-themed windows, the last being producedin 1928 for a church in Aurora, NY.

In 1894 Fredrick Wilson designedand painted his own rendition of TheGood Shepherd, to be used by what wasthen Tiffany Glass & DecoratingCompany. By 1909, Louis C. Tiffany, ArtDirector; Edwin Stanton George, theStudio Manager; and Fredrick Wilson,

head of the Ecclesiastical Art Department,all officially agreed on and set a policy ofno longer using the art work of other mas-ter artists in their window designs unlessspecifically requested; from this point on,Tiffany’s staff of talented artists anddesigners would only produce their ownoriginal art work to be used in Tiffanywindow designs. They felt that by usingsomeone else’s artwork for their win-dows, it cheapened the Tiffany product.

The last New York Times “Art Notes”that mentions a Tiffany Good Shepherdwindow is from October 7, 1888. near thevery bottom of the announcement for a

residential window Tiffany had just com-pleted for a home in San Francisco:“…The extent of the change which is tak-ing place in church interiors in the UnitedStates can be measured in some degreesby one who is shown through the work-shops of the Tiffany Glass Company onFourth avenue. Pale, rich, or gorgeouswindows are in all stages of preparation,from the water-color sketch and cartoonto the finished product raised against thewindows of the showroom. In such aplace, one is able to measure the differ-ence between stained glass as the ancientsknew it and the elaborate work which

Good Shepherd, First Presbyterian Church, Galveston, Texas, Lamb Detail



now goes by that name. The bosses,bull’s-eyes, and jewels, which the men ofthe Middle Ages placed on their clothes,trappings, weapons, and shrines are nowboldly introduced into the fabric of win-dows. The window now in the place ofhonor is a pink and yellow ‘Spring’ forMr. Moore of San Francisco, the LordCentral space occupied by a youthfulnymph with apple blossoms in the fold ofher robe, and the two side windows acharming scheme of interwoven stalksand leaves culminating in great fruit-likeglobes of cornelian glass. The side win-dows are very light; the central is remark-able for the delicate pink robe of thenymph, who is gracefully posed andsweet of face. This is a tender and gaypiece compared with The Good Shepherd,a very dark, rich window for a church,showing a Christ with sheep andlambs…”

It would have been too perfect hadthey named the church; this may wellhave been Mrs. Ball’s window on deck,

ready to be crated up and shipped out, tak-ing only six and half days to reachGalveston via the H. Mallory SteamshipLine. First Presbyterian’s Church Historyrecords: “On October 17, 1888, Dr. Scottsolemnized the first wedding in the sanc-tuary despite its not quite finished state.”

We are not certain that The GoodShepherd window was in place by thistime; we are certain all of the stained glasswindows were in place before the dedica-tion on February 26, 1889.

I think that it is interesting that theessence of erecting a Memorial Windowis a monument given in remembrance ofthose who have gone before us.Researching these old windows and dig-ging through old books and archives,names and lives lived were brought back,being remembered and some even record-ed again in my research. In a true sense,Tiffany’s advertisement in PopularScience Monthly, “Memorial Windows,”is proven true: his windows and his con-temporaries work continue to bring to

mind not only the artists and the studioswho made the memorial windows butthose for whom the memorials were erect-ed: “THE instinct of immortality survivesthrough the centuries. The idea that thedead remember colors both literature andart, and makes the theme of poem andmonument. In what way shall we showthat they are not forgotten? … What shallwe do to keep fresh dear names? Shallthey be written on stone or brass, cut inmarble, or engraved on enduring copper?Shall there be a statue to recall the figureof the dead, or shall we repeat the van-ished features on canvas? Or shall we goback to that good old art in which thegreat masters wrought with such splendorof color in glass? The idea of making amemorial monument of a window seemsto have taken a strong hold on the mindsof the early workers in stained glass…”

Good Shepherd, First Presbyterian Church, Galveston, Texas, Scripture Detail

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