Armorial panel

Physical description

Panel. Arms of Mary of Burgundy. Grosvenor Thomas collection.

Place of Origin

Flanders (region), Belgium (made)

Date

ca. 1496 (made)

Artist/maker

Unknown (production)

Materials and Techniques

Clear and coloured glass with painted details and yellow (silver) stain.

Dimensions

Height: 113.5 cm framed, Width: 79.8 cm framed, Height: 105.2 cm sight, Width: 71.5 cm sight

Object history note

Reconstruction of the windows in the Chapel of the Holy Blood:
Were 9 windows of two lights each.
19th replacements
Window 7: Emperor Maximilian & Mary of Burgundy
Window 8: Charles the Bold and Isabel of Bourbon
Window 9: Charles V and Isabella of Portugal

From the archives of the Confraternity of the Holy Blood – payments for glazing were recorded in 1483 and in 1496.

The ancient glass disappeared during the French invasion of 1797. The glass from the Chapel was sold by the municipality of Bruges to a local man for a miniscule sum who then sold them, at great profit, to an English man in the early 19th century. Believe the glass ended up with firm of Watson & Bethell.

There are coloured drawings of the windows, pre-dispersal, in the Chapel archives. In 1845 reproductions of the panels were made from these drawings by the glass painter Pluys.

In 1913 they were owned by Grosvenor Thomas. He acquired them from Kilburn Grange which was erected after 1830.

Rackham, in a letter of 1921, says panels were previously in Kilburn Grange which had been pulled down 10 or 12 years ago [presumably meaning 1909 or 1911]. The family of Major Cecil Peters of Sunbury Manor, Sunbury in Middlesex, formerly owned Kilburn Grange.

Historical context note

Mary was the daughter of Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy (d.Jan. 1477) and his second wife Isabel of Bourbon (d.1465). She married Maximilian von Hapsburg, heir to the imperial throne in August 1477.
The impalements are reversed, Mary's arms are given precedent rather than Maximilian's. However the escutcheons of pretence are correctly placed.

Descriptive line

Clear and coloured glass with painted details and yellow (silver) stain. Depicting the arms of Mary of Burgundy impaled with those of Maximilian of Austria. From the Chapel of the Holy Blood, Bruges, c.1496.

Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)

Bernard Rackham, The Stained Glass in the Chapel of the Holy Blood at Bruges, Actes du XIIe Congres International d'Histoire de l'Art, Bruxelles, 20-29 Septembre, 1930, pp.424-431
The Grosvenor Thomas Collection of Ancient Stained Glass, catalogue, New York, 1913
Aymer Vallance, 'Some Flemish Painted Glass Panels', Burlington Magazine, XIX (July 1911)
J. Gaillard, Recherches historiques sur las chapelle du Saint-Sang a Bruges, Bruges, 1846
David Thomas Powell (ac.1800-c.1837), copies (12) of stained glass from the Chapel of the Holy Blood, Bruges. Watercolours.
The glass was in the possession of Watson and Bethel in England when Powell made these watercolours.
Barbara Butts and Lee Hendrix, Painting on Light: Drawings and Stained Glass in the Age of Durer and Holbein, J.Paul Getty Trust, 2000

Labels and date

Stained Glass Panels from the Chapel of the Holy Blood
Probably about 1496

These panels depict the armorials associated with the Dukes of Burgundy and their Hapsburg successors. Two of the armorials commemorate the marriages between Maximilian of Hapsburg and Mary, Duchess of Burgundy and also that of their son Philip the Fair and his wife Joanna, heiress to the Kingdom of Spain.
Maximilian probably commissioned these windows to honour his wife's devotion to the Holy Blood and to publicise his dynastic succession to the Dukes of Burgundy.

Flanders, Bruges
Clear and coloured glass with painted details and silver stain; with later restorations
Museum nos.C.443, 444, 445, 446, 447, 448-1918
Purchased from Grosvenor Thomas from the Capt. HB Murray Bequest [2008 (TAB)]

Production Note

From the Chapel of the Holy Blood, Bruges

Materials

Glass

Techniques

Painting; Silver staining; Pot metal; Flashing

Categories

Stained Glass

Collection code

CER