Glass Windows
An Overview of Antique American Stained Glass Windows
There has been significant interest in American Stained glass windows in the last 40 years. A stained, or leaded glass window is a window made of many pieces of glass, which may be clear or colored that are leaded together. Most European stained glass windows are primarily painted: the design features are painted on the glass pieces as opposed to American windows which generally use different colored pieces to achieve the desired design effect. Most of the desirable windows were produced in the period between 1885 and 1920. In New York alone there were 200 hundred quality manufacturers of windows at the turn of the century. In general, windows which are more complicated in a design sense with smaller pieces are more desirable. There are several features which increase the value of the window. The quality of the glass is important.
Windows in the late 1870’s tended to be made with primarily transparent glass. About 1885 window makers begin to incorporate more complex glass. The glass tended to be more opaque with richer and more complex color combinations and textures to the glass. A lot of the windows of this era used marbleized glass in shades of blues with streaks of yellow or white, reds, greens, yellows, oranges and violet. Windows in this period often incorporated the use of many different types of jewels which could be either faceted like diamonds, or smooth cabochons. Their were many different colors of jewels and they were either clear, opalescent or iridescent. The jewels came in many shapes including round, square,diamond, rectangular, triangular or even comma shaped. The jewels added another dimension to the flat pieces of stained glass.
In general the greater the number of jewels in a window, the more valuable it is. Additionally in this period Clear Glass that was beveled in many different shapes were combined with stained glass to create “combination windows”. These stained and bevel combination windows, particularly when they are sophisticated or complicated designs are very desirable to collectors. Windows that were solely made of bevel glass were also popular in this period. These window when composed of lots of small curved pieces, often combined with clear jewels are very desirable. Complex beveling techniques including zipper cuts, the use of honeycombed glass, and beveling to a point were additional techniques used to make the bevel window more complex.
Some of the more expensive manufacturers, including Tiffany Studios, Lamb Studios, and Rudy Brothers would often plate two, three or even four layers of glass together to created complex color patterns,depth, and textures. Windows with multiple plated layers are generally more desirable. In general windows which are figural ( a design created to make an image of something, like a human figure, birds, trees, flowers or animals) are more desirable. One additional type of window of this era is called a mercury mosaic window, which was manufactured by Belcher. These windows , which can either be geometric or figural, consists of very small mostly transparent pieces of thin glass which are less that 3/4 of an inch which are essentially glued together with a mercury based epoxy. These windows are quite rare and there is a limited amount of information about their production.
In the author’s opinion, they are quite undervalued in today’s market.
http://www.docpaysthemost.com
Dr. Robert Lerch
About the Author
I am a nationally known collector of antiques including Tiffany studios, bakelite, stained glass. My collections have been published in Architectural Digest, and several books.
http://www.docpaysthemost.com
Dr. Robert Lerch
Source SDK Glass Window Tutorial
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