Victoria and Albert museum web entry for the glass panel 7/04/20 as below This panel would have occupied the top of a lancet (a narrow pointed window). It depicts St Peter kneeling in a boat with fish swimming in the bottom foreground. Behind him stand two angels. One holds five small figures of armoured knights, the other of nuns. St Peter holds out his hands, and on the right we see a hand presenting two keys to him. Surrounding the hands is a halo bearing the words ‘Dabo tibi’, which refers to the Gospel account of Jesus Christ giving the keys of heaven to Peter. Peter was originally a fisherman called Simon. He and his brother Andrew were fishing on the Sea of Galilee when Jesus called them to become his disciples. Simon became known as ‘Peter’ when Christ chose him to be the rock (Latin: petra) on which he would build his church, giving him the keys. Although the imagery in the panel relates to these events, we do not know why the two angels hold small figures of knights and nuns. This might be relevant to the place for which the panel was made, but sadly this is unknown. In 1857 Burne-Jones began a brief contract with the glass-making firm of J. Powells & Sons in London to supply them with designs for stained glass. He was to be paid a flat fee for this work. Powells would retain the right to reproduce his designs as often as they wished. The design for this panel was part of their stock.
Fitzwilliam work list 1857 I began to design for stained glass, and this year made 5 coloured and finished cartoons... 5. a Peter in a boat. D G Rossetti to Madox Brown Dec 1858 " Jones' drawings look splendid, but it seems they mean to hang his glass cartoons in the passage, which indeed seems necessary as they kill everything absolutely." The disparity in size between the figures of the saved souls and those of St Peter and the Angels is an indication of the artist's medievalism and the debt he owed to his study of medieval manuscripts. The influence of Rossetti is immediately apparent.
