Grey Matters

Anonymous artist, Rhineland (Cologne?)

The Assumption of the Virgin, ca. 1510-20
green-tinted cylinder glass with silver stain and vitreous paint
⌀ 8.5 inches
⌀ 21.7  cm

Shading is built up in tremendously subtle washes that help to balance and provide a counterpoint to the vivid yellow stain of the figures’ hair and clothing, and the effects of the apparently divine light that emanates from the Virgin, the dove, and the heavenly sky behind God the Father. Interestingly however, the designer responsible for our roundel’s composition lit everything uniformly from the left, regardless of the fact that those divine light sources are clustered around the Virgin herself, so that the two left-hand angels appear to be thrown into shade in the direction of the central mandorla of light rays rather than away from it. Nevertheless, the pigments are handled with extreme precision, so that clouds, hair, textiles and feathers are each inflected with a unique sense of texture and mass.

The stout, fleshy faces of the angels and the Virgin’s high forehead are features of our roundel that are strongly evocative of contemporary developments in panel painting, particularly that produced in the city of Cologne by painters including the Master of the Saint Bartholomew Altarpiece (figs. 1-2). It is likely that our roundel was produced in one of the city’s foremost glass-painting workshops by a glazier with direct access to his paintings, or with knowledge of his style.

Although our roundel’s composition is extremely rare, others incorporating analogous elements of its design include an example in the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Froyle (Hampshire), and another formerly in an Austrian private collection.[1] They are likely to have been made to decorate private chapels or family homes, and would have been the focus of celebrations on the feast of the Assumption, which typically occurs on the 15^th of August each year. ❖