Object Type
By the 1870s, stained glass for windows was becoming increasingly popular as decoration for private houses and other secular buildings. These three panels are thought to have come from a window in the nursery of Pownall Hall (Wilmslow, Cheshire), the home of the Manchester brewer, Henry Boddington (1849-1925).

People
Boddington was a keen social reformer and patron of the arts. He believed strongly in the potential for art to improve the quality of life. When he came into his inheritance in 1886, Boddington purchased Pownall Hall, an unpretentious, recently gothicised, Georgian house. He commissioned local architects, Ball & Elce, to extend and renovate the house. The Century Guild artists, an early group of Arts and Crafts artists and craftsmen working to unify all branches of the arts, led by the English architect and designer A.H. Mackmurdo (1851-1942) decorated Pownall Hall's rooms.

Artistic Movements
These panels were made around 1886 by the newly merged glassmakers Shrigley & Hunt of Lancaster. The company was among those leading the Aesthetic Movement's reaction against the heavy approach of the Gothic Revivalists, embracing the ideals of good design and craftsmanship pioneered by William Morris (1834-1896). For Boddington, Shrigley and Hunt produced windows whose delicately painted figures were effectively off-set against fruit and leaf patterned backgrounds. The motif of sunflowers and swallows seen here has previously been attributed to Selwyn Image (1849-1930), a leading designer among the Guild group of artists but is now though to be by Carl Almquist (1848-1924).