STAINED GLASSQUARTERLY OF THE STAINED GLASS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

PUBLISHED CONTINUOUSLY SINCE 1906

Volume 102, Number 1 • Spring 2007

The Stained Glass Quarterly40

“I have done the Ames window...and have suffered much from it”

By the time John La Farge wrote tohis friend historian Henry Adams aboutthe completion of the Angel of Helpstained glass window for Unity Churchin North Easton, Massachusetts, he wasalready considered one of America’sleading artists. Well known for works inpainting, book illustration, stained glass,and murals, La Farge had just completedwhat a critic declared in the 1887 ArtReview to be “the most elaborate win-dow made in the United States.” WhatLa Farge did not know is that this wouldbe the first of two masterpieces hewould create for the church, two impor-tant windows that would become thecrown jewels in a small New Englandtown already resplendent with architec-tural treasures.

North Easton, the Ames Family, andThe American Renaissance

By 1887, the town of North Eastonwas centered on the Ames ShovelCompany. The company, founded bystate senator Oliver Ames, Sr., thrivedby furnishing shovels for the UnionPacific Railroad during America’s west-ward expansion and by supplying shov-els to the Union during the Civil War.The prosperous Ames family shapedNorth Easton’s economy and also influ-enced its architecture and landscape,creating a collection of works by someof the best and most respected archi-tects, artists and artisans of theAmerican Renaissance. Commissionsby the family included five buildings bythe architect for Boston’s TrinityChurch, H.H. Richardson.

Frederick Law Olmstead, thedesigner of New York’s Central Park,complemented three of Richardson’sbuildings with landscapes. In addition,Olmstead designed landscapes for four

of the Ames family estates. Other latenineteenth-century architects, includingGeorge Snell; Ware & Van Brunt; CarlFehmer; Rotch & Tilden; Shepley,Rutan, & Coolidge; and Guy Lowellalso graced North Easton with works.Artistry was represented not only in thestained glass windows of John La Fargebut also through works by sculptorAugustus Saint-Gaudens and woodcarv-er Johannes Kirchmeyer.

The Angel Window In 1882, industrialist Frederick

Lothrop Ames commissioned the first ofUnity Church’s two La Farge windowsto commemorate his only sister, HelenAngier Ames. Intended as a memorial to

TWO AMERICAN MASTERPIECES:La Farge Windows in North Easton, Massachusetts

by Robin Neely

The Angel of Help WindowJohn La Farge, 1882Photograph by Richard Gross

The Stained Glass Quarterly 41

The Wisdom WindowJohn La Farge, 1901Photograph by Richard Gross

The Stained Glass Quarterly42

a beloved sibling, the Angel of Helpwindow poses no question in the view-er’s mind of its purpose as a mourningicon. La Farge skillfully used all of thewindow’s elements to exploit an emo-tional power in the glass to aid the view-er in visualizing the ascent of thedeceased into heaven. Through the useof coloration and light control, the eye isdrawn upward to the jeweled sarcopha-gus. Rendered with early Christian andRenaissance symbolism, the casketdraped in vines, symbolizes eternal life.The heavenly ascent is further rein-forced by the darkness of the brokenjewel background and the supportiveplacement of the levitating angels

immediately below. The standing angelcontributes to the window’s verticalitywith its outspread wings. Identified asan allegory of Help, the figure ministersto the seated figures of Need andSorrow. Ninety years later, the preemi-nent La Farge scholar, BarbaraWeinberg, called the Angel window“one of the most impressive (windows)in the history of American glass.” Othershave called it simply “breathtaking.”

The Wisdom Window It would be remarkable for a small

church to hold one monumental windowby John La Farge, but Unity Churchholds a second and equally stunning mas-

terpiece by the artist.Cousins Oakes Ames andWinthrop Ames, in memoryof their grandfather,Congressman Oakes Ames,and their fathers, GovernorOliver Ames and OakesAngier Ames, commis-sioned the Wisdom windowin 1901. La Farge turnedagain to a combination ofClassical, Early Christian,and Renaissance motifs toimplement his theme. A sim-ple passage adapted fromProverbs 3: 15-17 rims thewindow’s perimeter andcontrasts with its visuallushness: “Wisdom is moreprecious than rubies, and allthe things that thou canstdesire are not to be com-pared unto her. Length ofdays is in her right hand andin her left hand riches andhonour. Her ways are waysof pleasantness, and all herpaths are peace.”

La Farge uses the threemajor figures found in a tra-ditional triangular arrange-ment of a “sacred conversa-tion” composition to illus-

trate the ancient text. Here the artist sub-stitutes the Wisdom figure for the sacro-sanct Madonna and Child. This mysteri-ous figure was influenced by La Farge’sinvolvement with sculptor AugustusSaint-Gaudens’ earlier work to create amonument for Clover Adams, wife of LaFarge’s good friend, Henry Adams. Thequiet somberness of the figure is punc-tuated by the knowledge that Adam’swife did not die a natural death but trag-ically took her own life by drinking pho-tographic chemicals, leaving Adamsgrief stricken for years. At the base ofthe seated Wisdom figure, an elderlyman, inspired by Donatello, reinforcesthe inscription’s “length of days,” and a

The Wisdom Window (detail)Photograph by Richard Gross

The Stained Glass Quarterly 43

young warrior from a Mantegna paint-ing personifies “riches and honour.”

Combined, the Angel of Help win-dow and the Wisdom window tells us a19-year-long story about John La Fargeas an artist, an artisan, and a man. But ofequal importance may be that the win-dows are two shining threads in a tapes-try of rich architectural and cultural his-tory in a small town that exemplifies thebest of the late nineteenth century.

The Restoration By the early 1990s the cracked and

buckling windows were in need of care,and Unity church members formed acommittee to start the project. The com-

mittee members’ prior experience ofprotecting works by Richardson,Olmstead, and St. Gaudens informedtheir approach, an approach that focusedon the philosophy of the conservationaspect — preserving the hand of thecraftsmen as much as the hand of theartist. Below, Robin Neely, the stainedglass consultant for both windows, dis-cusses the finer points of the projectwith Victor Rothman, the conservator ofthe Angel and the Wisdom windows.

Rothman: What helped you formu-late the specifications?

Neely: When I wrote the specifica-tions for these windows I was influ-enced by their context. These are monu-

mental windows still in their originalsetting, spanning La Farge’s artistic life.Additionally, the architectural signifi-cance of North Easton and the attitudeof the restoration committee influencedme. With five Richardson buildings,seven Olmstead landscapes, and worksby Saint Gaudens plus other artists andartisans, these windows were just onepart of a unique historical fabric. Notonly did I understand the importance oftheir context, but the committee hadspent years as good stewards of theirproperties and was very experienced inhistoric preservation. They were notlooking for a treatment that implied theywould not need to touch the windows

The Wisdom Window (detail)Photograph by Richard Gross

The Stained Glass Quarterly44

for 75-plus years, as in total releading.Instead, they embraced the idea that weneeded to preserve “the hand of themaker” as much as possible and werewilling to accept that certain panels mayneed work in the future. In the end, theproject straddled a museum conserva-tion approach and an architecturalapproach. The committee was undoubt-edly the most informed and sensitivethat I have ever worked with, but I’msure that living amongst these Americantreasures would teach one appreciationon a daily basis.

Neely: So Vic, let’s talk about thework that was done on the windows.This was a real opportunity for you toview the artistic and technical evolu-tion of La Farge, the artist, andThomas Wright, the fabricator. How

were the windows similar, and how didthey differ?

Rothman: The Angel of Help win-dow was commissioned in 1882 and wasinstalled in 1887. It is fairly early in LaFarge’s stained glass career, and at thatpoint, his figural work was in one plane,without much architectural detail. Thefigures tend to float on a jeweled back-ground. Later on, with the 1901 Wisdomwindow, you can see there is a lot morearchitectural detail. The window is morethree dimensional in quality; it may lacksome of the spontaneity of the earlierwindow, but the figures are moregrounded than in the earlier window.

Neely: And, technically, how didthe two windows differ? Were there a lotof changes in the fabrication, or was heusing the same techniques?

Rothman: He was using thesame basic techniques in bothwindows. Early on, La Farge andhis craftsmen figured out the wayof forming the drapery in theclothing, by cutting long, skinnypieces of glass and plating them.You can see the same kind ofshapes carrying through from theearly work to the later work — thefigural work and the modeling ofthe figures. The big difference isfound in the background of thelater windows. There is a lot ofglass in high heart leads, that is,two pieces of glass placed in thesame high-hearted lead. The earli-er windows generally have all theglass in single pieces of lead, plat-ed separately.

Neely: So there were differ-ences in the type of lead; whatabout differences in the manner ofplating?

Rothman: As a craftsmanmyself, I can envision having anoddball artist with a new idea ofhow to make a window come tome and say, “This is what I wantdone,” and then I have to figure

out how to build it. And I’m assumingthis is exactly what happened in theearly days of La Farge. When he hadhis own company, the La FargeDecorating Company, his two maincraftsmen were Thomas Wright andJohn Calvin. When the decoratingcompany went out of business in 1885,Wright and Calvin opened up theirown company, called the DecorativeStained Glass Company, just aroundthe corner from La Farge’s studio. Sothese are the guys who invented theglazing and the plating style for LaFarge’s vision. They continued tomake windows for him for the next 30years or so. Though the plating tech-nique got easier for the bench mechan-ics to build, it didn’t, in my opinion,evolve a great deal.

The Angel of Help Window (detail)Photograph by Richard Gross

The Stained Glass Quarterly 45

Neely: The issue of totally relead-ing versus partially releading a windowhas been a topic of controversy amongconservators in print and on Internetforums lately. My specificationsrequired that you relead only whereneeded so that the maximum amount oforiginal fabric was preserved. How doyou view the debate about total relead-ing versus partial releading?

Rothman: In my opinion, a windowpretty much dictates what level of workhas to get done. You can start a job withthe best of intentions, wanting to keepthe original structure. But if the lead isshot, the lead is shot, and you have toreplace it. On the other hand, I don’tbelieve in a magic 100-year-old numberor that windows need to be rebuilt every100 years. Some may need to be rebuiltin 50 years; some may last considerablylonger than 100 years. Again, the win-dow tells you what has to get done.

These windows are important his-torically, and they are important artisti-cally, so I have a slightly different takeon the relead/not to relead issue. WhileLa Farge gets all the credit, essentiallybecause he is the artist, somebody had tocut an incredible amount of glass in veryweird and convoluted shapes. They thenhad to figure out how to glaze it in amanner that had not been seen before inthe previous 800 years of stained glass.As a craftsman, I would like to pay myrespects to those artisans 100 years agowho built these windows. I think theirartistry is just as important as LaFarge’s, because his vision never wouldhave been able to be translated into glasswithout these guys. So I am payinghomage to the bench mechanics whobuilt these windows as well. I think theirwork deserves to be preserved for aslong as possible, simply because theydid such an amazing job.

Neely: The Wisdom window has notonly La Farge’s signature but also theinscription: in glass by Thomas Wright.Did La Farge give credit to Wright or

other artists in any of his other win-dows?

Rothman: Thomas Wright and thepainter, Juliette Hanson, both signed LaFarge’s Spring window, which is now atthe Philadelphia Museum of Art. Thoseare the only two I have seen firsthand.But La Farge has given credit to variouspeople over the years. I have an 1883newspaper article where La Farge wastalking to a reporter from the New YorkTimes, and he excused himself and men-tioned one of the craftsmen by name tocontinue the tour. In another article, theauthor said that La Farge very muchwanted to mention the name of John

Johnson as one of his people and to giveJohnson credit. And in the book, JohnLa Farge, Artist and Writer, written byCecilia Waern in 1896, La Farge men-tions Thomas Wright by name and saysthat Wright is “he who has no equal inthe management in color of glass.” Healso gives credit to the artisans whohelped him build the windows and stat-ed that, without them, he could not haveaccomplished what he wanted to accom-plish. So evidently La Farge was prettymagnanimous in giving credit to theunknown people.

Signature Plates from the Wisdom Window.Photograph by Robin Neely

Continued on Page 64.

The Stained Glass Quarterly64

Neely: And that comes around to preserving their handwork inthe windows?

Rothman: Exactly. By most reports, La Farge had an enormousego. And for someone like that to give credit to people whom thepublic doesn’t normally know anything about, says a lot about LaFarge’s character and the importance that these artisans played in hiswork. He accepted that fact and was more than willing to give cred-it where credit was due.

Neely: Let’s talk about the committee; they were prettyinvolved...

Rothman: Yes. That’s interesting and relates to the relead/partialrelead controversy. A common statement that is floated is that a win-dow needs to be releaded every 100 years. A lot of people hear that,and they believe it. The committee at Unity Church — because theyhave other historic properties — are aware of how to preserve his-toric building and elements. They are aware of their responsibility inthat they are basically the caretakers for these irreplaceable historicfeatures, and they want to preserve them as original for as long asthey can. That was the understanding under which both of these win-dows were worked on. So we didn’t restore them or try and makethem look like the first day they came out of the factory. We wantedto preserve what was there. We reinstalled them with a dry settingtechnique instead of glazing putty, so that when they do have to comeout again, the next person is going to have a much easier time of itthan we did and with less chance of damaging the glass. That phi-losophy was the basis for all this. This was what I would call a typi-cal museum-quality restoration, from the specification standpoint,from the owners’ standpoint, and from my standpoint. And very pos-sibly at some point in life, these are going to be two of the few LaFarge windows in their original setting that are mostly all originalmaterials. And I think that’s important.

About the author: Robin Neely served as the stained glass consultant for both the

Angel of Help window and the Wisdom window. She owns The Neely Studio Inc.

in Westbrook, Maine, and has more than 30 years of experience in the stained

glass field. Prior to moving to Maine, she was the Business and Project Manager

for The Greenland Studio in New York. She is currently restoring a Meyer of

Munich window that came to the studio in a bucket.

About the stained glass conservator: Victor Rothman conserved both the Angel of

Help window and the Wisdom window for Unity Church. He has owned Victor

Rothman for Stained Glass Inc. in Bronxville, N. Y. for 15 years. Prior to open-

ing the studio, Rothman worked at The Greenland Studio as the Studio Foreman.

He is a founding member of the American Glass Guild. He is currently restoring

the Edwin Booth window by John La Farge from the Church of the

Transfiguration in New York.

Two American MasterpiecesContinued from Page 45.

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