January 11th
update
Happy New Year! I have just finished a somewhat belated reorganisation of the cards pages. There are two significant changes - firstly the Christmas cards have been given their own page and this means that the cards page will now load faster. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, for a limited time we are offering visitors the chance to buy individual cards with a below-cost S&H charge. This means that if you just want to buy one card for a very special gift or occasion you can do so for about the same as you would pay for a Hallmark card but with one of these you are getting a miniature work of art, a real one-of-a-kind. The following is a quotation from an email which I received from someone who had just purchased 2 sets of the cards,
I was going to paraphrase it but I don't think that I could possibly do it justice and so here it is, verbatim:-
"Thanks! The pictures are incredible. My wife couldn’t believe they were photos of stained glass. She said they look like paintings – not photos of paintings, but paintings themselves. She didn’t know how you did it. High praise, I think. A personal letter written in that note card would be a gift to treasure. You may want to pitch that concept around the holidays, or Valentine’s Day. What better gift than a photograph of an incredible work of art accompanying a personal note. You’re bringing two nearly lost (and moving art) forms -- stained glass and letter writing – together in one gift."
I am certainly hoping that we make some sales for Valentine's Day, and for Easter too which is just around the corner. Last but not least I believe that I will soon have completed the upload of pictures of the windows in Christ's Episcopal Church in Riverton. The crowning glory is a fairly early Tiffany rose window which I believe dates to when he was about 35 yrs old and would have been involved personally to a much greater extent than with some of the many later works. It is an unusual design with an inner circle with some angel faces surrounded by what appear to be cornucopias decorated with holly branches. There are other nice windows but I have yet to determine the makers of the other works. I will apologise in advance for any shortcomings in the editing. I should have spent more time adjusting them and even eliminating some duplications which slipped through but I ran out of time and decided to upload something rather than nothing.
December
19th update
Unfortunately the Christmas Concert at the convent of St Elizabeth had to be cancelled due to the severe snow-storm which struck New Jersey on the weekend that it was planned to take place. However, I am delighted to be able to announce that some of the photographs which I took and which were going to be exhibited have now been posted on the website of
the Sisters of Charity from whom prints may be ordered.
January 18th
update
A folder has just been uploaded which contains images of some of the windows from Christ Episcopal Church, a beautiful stone-built church on the border of Bloomfield and Glenridge. There is a set of 3 lancets by Tiffany Studios - one is an Annunciation, the second is an Adoration of the Magi and the third is Jesus as a boy, preaching to the Elders in the Temple. There is another 3-lancet set opposite it (image #04) which includes a rather fine angel playing a mandolin is signed "Kimberley" and dates from the 1920's. The west window is a depiction of Jesus blessing the children, I do not know the maker. As with the folder uploaded last week these are not labelled and have been subject to minimal editing.
The other significant item of news is that we have located a source for genuine examples of antique stained glass. These are mostly panels from houses and other secular buildings and right now there are some beautiful examples of early Arts and Crafts Movement panels from the 1880's. One set in particular which caught my attention features beautifully hand-painted images of birds. Due to the fact that most of their customers are from the US all their pricing is in $US and is therefore unaffected by the weaker dollar. Eventually I plan to set up a permanent link to this interesting source of original works but for the time being you can access it from here
if you like Victorian and Edwardian stained glass and have a house
where it would look good then you would do well to at least take a look at what is available. However, you must bear in mind that these are original, one-of-a-kind pieces and the stock is turning over all the time. On the one hand it means that new items are constantly being added but it also means that when you see something you like you may need to move quickly.
January 30th
update
I am delighted to announce that Stained Glass Photography has been appointed as an online distributor of the entire range of Glassmasters fine stained glass reproductions. For many years now this company in Richmond, Virginia, has been producing fine miniature replicas of works by Tiffany Studios, Frank Lloyd Wright, John La Farge, Marc Chagall and others. It is no coincidence that many great museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation have all chosen Glassmasters to reproduce their stained glass treasures.
This represents a significant enhancement to the website and offers not only the chance to buy these beautiful works but also the chance to see many new images. Whilst these are not photographs of real windows in situ the Glassmasters models are so beautifully made and with such attention to detail that they are themselves worth looking at in order to better appreciate the design qualities in the original works. For me this was particularly true of the Frank Lloyd Wright collection because I have never seen his work first-hand and the opportunity to look closely at the pictures of these 25 to-scale miniatures has given me a much better appreciation of why his work is so sought after. Examples
