This window was brought into the studio in a sorry state. It had been bought at auction by a private buyer, presumed to be a fragment of a larger church window, Christ raising Lazarus who would originally have been in the second light, now missing. (Obeying Christ’s instruction, he has already picked up his bed and walked!!). We believe that the original work was from the Victorian studio of Heaton Butler and Bayne.
The brief was to strip the window of its damaged leads, build out the top corners to a square, (in the original it had a trefoil top presumably to fit into a gothic window opening), then to repair or match and re-paint the missing and damaged pieces of glass.
Before de-construction, a rubbing was made of the panel. The lead was then stripped and each piece of glass carefully cleaned and assessed. Where possible clean breaks were repaired with a fine copper foil. A paper pattern ‘cutline’ was generated from the rubbing to enable accurate reconstruction. The missing glass was carefully matched and painted to blend with the original. The window was then re-leaded, cemented and polished – voila!
