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Whoopsie
Post #1107 • January 3, 2008, 12:35 PM • 1 Comment
Wilmington, DE - The Delaware Museum of Art has constructed a little room for the temporary display of a cycle of Tiffany windows inspired by the revelations of Emanuel Swedenborg. This is the first Tiffany work I've seen in person of a religious subject, and his nigh-sculptural technique does it more justice than I would have predicted. The lovely painting that one would expect is augmented with panels of rough glass, two inches thick in places, where jewels on the angels' raiment are made to leap off of the surface. Executed in 1902, removed in 1964 when the church was razed, they went into rather undignified storage.
For 37 years, the boxed eight-foot-tall windows remained in parishioners' garages and basements in Ohio, traveled in a U-Haul to a Swedenborgian property in Pennsylvania, and rested there in a barn until 2001, when a newly-arrived minister opened the unmarked boxes. Stunned, she called stained-glass expert Arthur Femenella, who recognized Tiffany's opalescent glass, design, and technique through decades of grime. Church archives confirmed the attribution. In 2004, restoration of the angels began. Cleaning of the last window revealed Tiffany's signature. In Company with Angels, a nonprofit organization, is now dedicated to the preservation and exhibition of the windows.
Picture at the link. I can't help but imagine the windows spending decades in the company of boxes of MAD Magazines.
1.
ahab
January 3, 2008, 3:44 PM
Or Heavy Metal albums.