Stained Glass

71 Victorian Things: Kriegel discussions ofVictorian things after the materialist turn have tended to do.Yet, I would argue that explicit criticisms of mechanization and commodification always assumed a back seat to more immediate interests in chronicling the lace trade and remedying its ailments as it seemed on the brink of extinction. Memorials to the multi-staged lace revival employed a range of historical registers , including melodrama, antiquarianism, and ethnography, as they sought to preserve a trade that was on the verge of disappearance, yet always near renaissance. Perhaps it is ironic that in these annals of lace reform, it was not simply the trade itself that was approaching the vanishing point. Instead, a distinct tradition of female reform and writing seemed to be slipping away. Works Cited Baily, J.T. Herbert. Catalogue of the Daily Mail Exhibition of British Lace,1908. London, 1908. Cole,Alan Summerly. A Renascence of the Irish Art of Lace-Making. London: Chapman & Hall, 1888. ___. Report on Northampton,Buckinghamshire,and Bedfordshire Lacemaking. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1892. Freedgood, Elaine.“‘Fine Fingers’:Victorian Handmade Lace and Utopian Consumption.” Victorian Studies 45.4 (2003): 625–47. “Ireland’s Contributions to the World’s Fair.” Illustrated Exhibitor 9 (1851): 142–43. Meredith, Mrs. The Lacemakers: Sketches of Irish Character with Some Account of the Effort to Establish Lacemaking in Ireland. London: Jackson,Walford, & Hodder, 1865. “Mrs. Bury Palliser’s History of Lace.” Quarterly Review 249 (1868): 166–88. Palliser, Mrs. Fanny Bury. Descriptive Catalogue of the Lace in the South Kensington Museum. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1873. ___. Guide to the Ancient and Modern Lace in the International Exhibition. London: n.p., 1874. ___. A History of Lace,Entirely Revised,Rewritten,and Enlarged under the Editorship of M.Jourdain and Alice Dryden. NewYork: Dover, 1901. Treadwin, Mrs. Antique Point and Honiton Lace. London:Ward, Lock, &Tyler, n.d. Wyatt, Matthew Digby. Industrial Arts of the Nineteenth Century. London: Day & Son, 1851–1853. • Stained Glass Jim Ch eshir e • The complexity of making stained glass would seem to preclude amateur attempts at this difficult medium, and yet a surprising number of Victorians decided to try. Most seem to have been motivated by their Christian faith, which in the context of the ecclesiological movement meant actively participating in church design and ornamentation. Amateur glass painters were (not surprisingly) often clergymen and often women, arguably because glass painting offered a chance to produce something more permanent for an ecclesiastical interior than a flower arrangement or a Christmas garland.1 victorian review • Volume 34 Number 1 72 Just how amateurs coped with the materials and techniques of this medieval art is of considerable interest, and the extensive corpus of amateur stained glass in Lincoln Cathedral presents a good opportunity for research.All these windows were made by the clerical brothers Frederick and Augustus Sutton, between 1859 and the end of the 1860s.The Sutton brothers were the fifth and seventh sons of Sir Richard Sutton, one of the richest men in England (Middleton ). Both were inspired by the ecclesiological movement, and F. H. Sutton later became an acknowledged expert on church organs. In the 1870s, he collaborated with the well-known architect G. F. Bodley in the restoration of his parish church, St. Helen, Brant Broughton, Lincolnshire.The following piece examines one of their early windows, the“Elisha” window, which has recently benefited from extensive analysis and conservation by the Lincoln Cathedral Glazing Department.2 Concrete information about the working practices of the Sutton brothers is very scarce, but a detailed examination of the window itself allows us to propose some theories about how they worked.The window was removed for conservation in 2001, the first time it had been worked on since its installation in 1859. Painting on glass is a difficult business: enamel paint does not stick to glass as oil paint might stick to canvas, and once applied successfully, it needs to be heated in a kiln until the vitreous element in the paint fuses with the surface of the underlying glass. Before painting, the variously coloured pieces of glass must be selected and cut into awkward shapes. Even after cutting and firing, Elisha Heals the Bitter Waters. Detail of South Lancet, East...