Medieval Stained Glass and the Victorian Restorer

Abstract

The recovery of the ‘true principles’ of stained glass as an integral part of the Gothic Revival of the nineteenth century grew out of a complex relationship between restoration, reinvention, and startling creativity. The tensions between craft, commerce, art, and scholarship were quick to surface in Victorian debates about restoration, and the descriptions of earlier nineteenth-century restoration practices found in the relevant literature in the years from c. 1900 onwards, much of it derogatory, imply that there was a homogeneous approach to stained glass restoration that could be described as both ‘Victorian’ and destructive. Infamous restorations, such as the Betton and Evans work at Winchester College, have been compared (unfavourably) to the projects in which pioneering stained glass scholar Charles Winston exerted an ‘enlightened’ influence. This article considers to what extent, and why, medieval stained glass required restoration by the Victorians, and to what extent they rescued rather than diminished an endangered heritage. It discusses the surprising variety of approaches adopted across the period, and to what extent these principles and approaches have shaped and influenced modern practice. It will also suggest that by the turn of the twentieth century the proponents of stained glass and its restoration, predominantly artists, were beginning to lose touch with an increasingly science-based understanding of the underlying causes of stained glass deterioration, factors that are also now undermining the survival of our nineteenth-century stained glass inheritance. In many late twentieth-century restorations of ancient stained glass, the work of Victorian restorers was ruthlessly stripped away, usually with little, if any, documentation. A proper understanding of the significance and impact of this complex history is essential if we are to conserve historic stained glass responsibly and ethically, a challenge that now extends to the conservation and protection of the works of the Gothic Revival as well.