PAINTED GLASS.
It would hardly be proper in a publication like the present, to pass over without notice the most brilliant of the pictorial arts—that of glass painting, as practised by our medieval ancestors. We therefore gladly embrace the present opportunity of directing the attention of our readers to the subject, with a view not only to the preservation of existing specimens of ancient painted glass, but to the ultimate and complete revival of the art itself. No apology can be necessary for this; the intrinsic excellence of the art of glass painting, when, as in the middle ages, practised according to its true principles, and with due regard to the peculiar properties of glass, its brilliancy and transparency, and the value of the specimens now remaining to us, as illustrative of customs and decorations, and especially of the condition of the arts at various periods, alike entitle it to our attentive consideration.
Glass painting may be emphatically termed a medieval art; its development took place during the middle ages, and it attained its greatest perfection towards, or almost immediately upon, their close. The models for our imitation are consequently of somewhat ancient date; their number is daily diminishing; and we therefore cannot too strongly urge upon all, especially upon those charged with this duty, the extreme importance of preserving what time and violence have spared. It is not merely to the preservation of the greater and more perfect works that we would call the attention of our readers. Every little fragment of painted glass is interesting to the observant student: insignificant though it be in itself, it is a fact, which may confirm or qualify some preconceived opinion.
It is lamentable to think of the quantities of old glass that have been, and are in process of being, wholly lost through neglect alone. An ancient glass painting is composed of many pieces of glass, of various sizes, held together by means of leads, i. e. narrow strips of that metal, having a groove on either side sufficiently wide to receive the edges of the glass. From age, and other causes, the leads become decayed; a
