Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst Stained Glass Treasures

The magnificent windows that illuminate the east and west sides of the Sanctuary of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst represent a revolution in stained glass art in the 1800s that catapulted that medium's popularity to a height not seen since medieval times.

In Europe, stained glass had been used in churches for centuries. In Puritan New England, however, it was largely unknown. When it came into fashion in the 1830s, the medium was basically limited to painting the surface of glass. The few stained glass artists in this country had but a tiny palette of true colored glass from which to choose.

In 1873, New York painter John La Farge (1835-1910) traveled to England. There he saw that "plating" -- layering pieces of glass in different colors -- could dramatically increase that palette.

Once home, he further discovered that opalescent glass, a milky tableware glass made to imitate fine porcelain, could diffuse light in amazing ways, creating even more colors and adding a "drapery" effect. In 1880, La Farge patented his revolutionary plating process using opalescent glass.

Like La Farge, Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933), son of the New York jeweler Charles Lewis Tiffany, was trained as a painter. When Louis decided to go into the more lucrative field of decorative arts in 1879, his father suggested a partnership with La Farge, by this time internationally renowned as a stained glass designer.

Tiffany did spend time with La Farge in the older artist's studio. But in 1881, he infuriated his mentor by obtaining a patent similar to his for plating opalescent glass.

La Farge sued for patent infringement. The suit later disappeared from court records (perhaps it was dropped by La Farge because the much wealthier Tiffany family could hire more or better lawyers). By the 1890s, Tiffany was claiming that he'd been the first to come up with the idea of plating with opalescent glass.

Now bitter enemies, La Farge and Tiffany competed for a clientele that included the cream of Victorian society -- patrons eager to adorn their mansions, offices and churches with stained glass.

The rivals' windows in Amherst were made in about 1889 to honor members of the All Souls Unitarian Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Each window offers a tantalizing glimpse into the life and times of Unitarian men and women in 19th century New England -- the heritage of Amherst's Unitarian Universalists today.

John La Farge's Triptych

John La Farge not only used opalescent glass in his plating technique; he designed all of his windows himself, and personally oversaw their construction. In part because of this attention to detail, his small studio produced only 4,000 windows in his lifetime.

According to stained glass consultant and historian Julie Sloan, the central window in the triptych now in Amherst is similar to La Farge's Christ Blessing at Boston's Trinity Church. A significant difference -- and one doubtless critical to his Unitarian clientele -- is that here he has portrayed Jesus without the halo worn by his Trinitarian counterpart.*
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*What appears to some to be a halo around the head of Jesus is extra light entering spaces once filled with "jewels," round pieces of glass. As the lead holding them has weakened, a number of jewels have popped out in recent years.
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John (to the observer's left), and Paul (to the observer's right) are similar to La Farge's John and Paul at Judson Memorial Church in New York, although those images were created several years after the ones now in Amherst.

The faces, hands and feet of all three figures are painted onto the glass. This part of the project was often assigned to Juliette Hanson, La Farge's employee.

Another woman may have played a very different role in the creation of the triptych. For decades, visitors to Amherst have commented that John seems to have a rather feminine form, face and stance.

Sloan tells us that when his wife was pregnant with their seventh child, La Farge left her to move into his studio with his assistant and artist's model, Mary Lawrence Whitney. The face of his mistress begins to appear in his stained glass in 1884, and her visage as a definitely female subject at Judson Memorial bears a striking resemblance to the face of our John.

The triptych now in Amherst was created for All Souls Unitarian Church in Roxbury in 1889, the same year La Farge was awarded the French Medal of the Legion of Honor for his contribution to art.

The window depicting John the Evangelist was commissioned by Mary Elizabeth Meredith "in loving memory" of her parents, Walter Farnsworth (1798-1881) and Elizabeth Loring Young (1804-1878).

The 1860 federal census shows the couple living in Roxbury Ward 5 with Charlotte A. Farnsworth, 25, and Walter L. Farnsworth, 19, who may have been Mary's siblings.

The top panel reads: Make them to be numbered with thy saints in glory everlasting.

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The window depicting Jesus -- paid for with funds collected from friends of the Roxbury parish -- is dedicated to the memory of the Rev. Charles James Bowen.

Born in Rhode Island in 1827, Bowen served Unitarian churches in Massachusetts and Maryland, and also as Chaplain in an army hospital during the Civil War. He was minister of Mt. Pleasant Church in Roxbury from 1865 until his death in 1870 at 42; records list the cause of death as "Disease of Kidney." All Souls Unitarian would be the continuation of Mt. Pleasant Church.

The top panel reads: By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love to one another.

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The window depicting Paul was dedicated "in affectionate memory" of Leonard Ware (1805-1888) and his wife, Sarah Ann Minns (1816-1884), "by their children." The 1860 census shows six sons and two daughters, ages four-20, in their Roxbury home! By 1880, the census included occupations. Leonard's was listed then as "oil business" -- most likely whale oil, as petroleum oil was unknown before 1859.

The top panel reads: I have finished my course. I have kept the faith.

Louis C. Tiffany's Angel of The Lilies

At its height, the gigantic Tiffany Glass Company employed 200 workers and produced not only vases and lamps, but tens of thousands of stained glass windows.

In the early 1880s, Tiffany designed his windows himself. By the time the Angel of the Lilies was installed in All Souls Unitarian in Roxbury in 1890, he was delegating the design work to staff artists and freelancers.

Tiffany's studios produced four types of windows. Those with floral or ornamental mosaic themes were popular in homes. Churches commissioned windows with biblical figures, who were often clothed in garments made with "drapery glass." As in La Farge's windows, paint applied to the surface of the glass was used to depict faces, feet and hands.

The most costly type of window -- the landscape, considered Tiffany's crowning contribution to the medium -- was rarely found in houses of worship. We are fortunate to have examples here in the panels of the Angel window that depict lilies, mountains and sky.

Stained glass consultant Julie Sloan believes that the Angel of the Lilies window (also called the Angel of the Resurrection) was created prior to the arrival at Tiffany's studio of principal figural designer Frederick Wilson. Even so, Wilson used a later version of its angel theme in a window included in the Columbian Chapel at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

Our angel, however, has a different face than Wilson's. A member of All Souls told Amherst's Unitarians long ago that it was presumed to "bear a suggested likeness" to the young Unitarian the inscription commemorates:

The Frothinghams, a large and prominent Boston family, produced several prominent Unitarian ministers, including Octavius Brooks Frothingham, an author and anti-slavery leader when abolition was still unpopular in New England. Octavius was a contemporary of Sarah's father. We do not yet know how closely they were kin, but a photograph of Octavius shows a brow and cheekbones much like our angel's. It is tempting to imagine Sarah having spirited conversations with her famous cousin at gatherings of their extended family!

We do know that in 1860, Sarah was the second youngest of seven children (five boys, two girls) in the Boston home of her parents, Samuel and Maria L. Frothingham. On June 2, 1869, she married a Harvard graduate seven years her senior: Henry Bigelow Williams, a member of the Harvard Musical Association, Boston Art Club and Boston Athletic Association.

His father owned a large estate in Roxbury; part of All Souls Unitarian Church would later be built on it.

In 1871, Sarah, not yet 20, found herself in a carriage pulled by a team of runaway horses. As it careened toward the entrance to the Williams estate, she leapt from the vehicle to save herself -- only to be killed by the impact of her fall.

At the time of Sarah's death, Henry was working for his sister's husband in a real estate firm. In 1875, he left "to give his attention to real estate on his own." He was also commissioned as a justice of the peace by the governor. A year later, Henry married Susan Sturgis McBurney, a widow. He apparently did well in business, for records show he kept homes both in Boston and in fashionable Newport, Rhode Island.

In 1888 -- the same year that All Souls Unitarian Church was constructed -- Henry retired to "attend to his estate." One of his first acts was to commission a memorial window for the new church by the studios of Louis C. Tiffany.

Angel of the Lilies would be installed in All Souls Unitarian Church overlooking the site of Sarah's tragic death 19 years before.

Acknowledgements

Our thanks to Julie L. Sloan, Professor Paul Staiti and The Rev. Mark W. Harris for helping us to better understand and celebrate the history, beauty and individuals behind the stained glass treasures of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst.

This brochure has also drawn upon documents recently found on line by Janis Gray, and uncovered in dusty archives in the past by students John Marsh (1976) and Jane C. Wollman (1981).

La Farge triptych photographed by Richard E. Stevens; Tiffany angel photographed by Ronald Trent Anderson.

Note: You may wish to download another version of this document, with additional pictures, in PDF format. (This is a large file, approximately 4 MB.)

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