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Saint Chad
Whall, born 1849 - died 1924 - Enlarge image
Saint Chad
- Object:
Panel
- Place of origin:
England, Great Britain (made)
- Date:
ca. 1901-1910 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Whall, born 1849 - died 1924 (maker)
- Materials and Techniques:
Slab glass with painted and stained details
- Museum number:
C.87-1978
- Gallery location:
Sacred Silver & Stained Glass, room 83, case S5
Christopher Whall began to design stained-glass panels in the 1880s. Until 1907, when he opened his own workshop, he relied on the skilled glass craftsmen employed by such firms as Lowndes & Drury to construct his windows.
Whall was one of the earliest stained glass artists to make use of 'slab' glass. This had been invented by E.S. Prior in 1889 and is also known as 'Early English' glass. Slab glass is blown into a square mould and then cut into slabs. The resultant slabs are irregular in thickness and in colour (when coloured glass is blown). When light passes through such glass it is broken up, which produces a variable effect in each individual piece of glass. Whall was a master in exploiting the qualities of this new technique in glass production.
St. Chad became Bishop of Lichfield in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia in 669. His cult is particularly strong in this part of England. The cathedral authorities at Gloucester commissioned Christopher Whall to make windows for their Lady Chapel. This panel and another in the Victoria & Albert Museum (Museum number: C.88-1978) that depicts St. Agatha are smaller versions of two windows that Whall made for Gloucester Cathedral. These smaller versions may have been trial panels for these windows, or they may have been made later for the Arts & Crafts Exhibition of 1910.
