In contrast to traditional stained glass, which was coloured with metallic oxides when molten, this fragment was decorated using a new technique introduced in England in the early 14th century. This consisted of painting a compound of silver on the back of the glass. After firing in a kiln, the silver compound would turn yellow. Many panels from the 14th and 15th centuries are decorated simply in yellow (silver) stain and highlighted with a brown-black pigment.

This fragment is composed of clear glass stained yellow on the reverse with the details of the leaf painted in brown pigment on the front of the glass. This sort of decoration would have formed part of the background of a decorated stained glass panel. It may have been part of a panel in a church decorated with an image of a saint.

The religious conflicts that affected the British Isles in the 16th and 17th centuries had a devastating effect upon the decorative arts and furnishings of the Christian church. Much of the medieval stained glass in churches and cathedrals was damaged and only survives in a fragmentary state.