Stained & painted glass

Stained Glass Appeal

We need your help to raise £75,000 to conserve and re-install William Bell Scott's original stained glass on the landings of the Manfred and Lydia Gorvy Lecture Theatre

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Stained glass 1140–1250

The earliest stained glass panels in the V&A date from about 1140-4. This panel is made up of small, irregularly shaped pieces of coloured glass. The glass is coloured by a…

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Stained glass 1240–1380

This panel is known as a grisaille panel. 'Grisaille' is a term used for panels of clear glass with simple, often monochrome only, decoration. The panel is composed of clea…

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English stained glass 1325–1520

In the late medieval period, both religious and secular settings often displayed panels or roundels of coloured glass against a background of plain glass quarries. This pan…

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French stained glass 1510–1540

These three panels are from a large narrative window dedicated to the story of the Life of St Peter, originally from a church in Rouen in Normandy. The style of these windo…

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German and Swiss stained glass 1470–1510

Lukas Zeiner was a glass painter and glazier. He is recorded in the town records of Zurich between 1479 and 1512. Zeiner was a leading glass artist in the field of heraldic…

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Netherlandish painted glass 1500–1530

This roundel is formed from a single circular pane of glass. The glass-painter drew the design with a simple brown/black pigment composed of iron filings and ground glass. …

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Painted glass 1550–1700

This panel illustrates very well the art of 'painting on glass'. Instead of forming part of the design, lead lines are used only to join the panes of glass together into on…

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Stained and painted glass 1770–1870

The 19th century in Europe opened with a widespread interest in the religious art of the medieval church. Artists and scientists worked together to revive the techniques of…

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Stained and painted glass 1900–1960

Harry Clarke was one of the great masters of 20th-century stained glass. Many of his windows, such as this one, are reminiscent of those at Chartres in the depth and richne…

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Making a stained glass panel

The panel being made in this video is a replica of a piece of stained glass from around 1375. The original panel once formed part of the scene of Christ's Entry into Jerusa…

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