The first panels I made at The Royal College of Art (Albert Hall in the background) in 1983
Painting on glass is to me the most interesting aspect of stained glass. When I was a student at the RCA before I developed my own way of using glass enamels I used the traditional glass painters' opaque iron oxide and yellow silver stain.
Imagine my amazement when I went to the V&A last year and saw that some windows had appeared using these same techniques and on the back of rolled plate glass, usually used in industrial buildings. These were commissioned when the V&A opened from William Bell Scott (friend of DGR & WM) but were already out of fashion by 1910-13 when they were removed and stored.
Two of four staircase windows by William Bell Scott in the V&A made from 1867-9
I saw an example of these same painting techniques in a series of four leaded windows to Noble Women in the Lady Chapel of Liverpool Anglican Cathedral. They were made by Powell and Sons between 1910 & 1920, lovely design, lovely subject matter including Christina Rossetti on the right, below.
