In 1892, Burne-Jones was given an important commission to design a pair of stained glass windows for the new and generously funded Hillhead Church in Glasgow. The windows, ”˜presented’ by Mrs. Donaldson in memory of her husband, a manager of the Church,(1) were crafted the following year by Morris & Co. and painted by Bowman and Walters.(2) They were one of the first in a series of stained glass designed by various artists to illuminate the semi-circular wall of the apse behind the altar. Other windows in the series by Cottier & Co., Meikle & Sons and Shrigley & Hunt, depict Jesus on trial before Pilate, at the wedding in Cana, together with his disciples in Samaria and Weeping at the grave of Lazarus. The subject of Burne-Jones’s commission was Jesus’s welcome and Blessing of little Children, which is addressed in the Gospel narratives of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Matthew describes how: Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them.(Matt. 19.13) But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto Me: for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.(14) In the finished windows the figures are set against a rich backdrop of silver foliage. Beneath the main two windows two angels bear a scroll which reads: In Heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father (Matt. 18:10).(3) The architect, James Sellars, had drawn his inspiration from the stunning medieval lights of la Sainte-Chapelle in Paris (1238-1244). The apse window at Hillhead Church was finally completed in 1909. The biblical story is suspended in a colourful translucency of the imagery, where, in direct sunlight, the church becomes flooded with jewel-like colour. 1. Mr. Donaldson had died in 1885. 2. Bowman and Waters also undertook other commissions for Morris & Co., including the stained glass in St Helen’s Church, Low Fell. 3. Another version of the Morris & Co. window can be found at Sparsholt, Wadhurst and St. Cyprian's Chapel, Eastbourne.
The pair - Christ Blessing Children; Women Bringing Children to the Presence of Christ - two, one inscribed u.l.: HILLHEAD/ Christ blessing children/ picture in upper portion of lights/ margin marked AA represents mullion; the other inscribed on the reverse: margin marked AA represents mullion/ HILLHEAD/ Christ blessing children/ picture in upper portion of lights/ FULL SIZE
This cartoon is for the left part of one of the two main stained glass windows in the chancel apse of Hillhead Church, Glasgow. Below that scene in the window are two angels holding a scroll, and another appearing in the tracery above. The window is entered in Burne-Jones's account book in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge under September 1892: 'Window for Hill Head. #100.' It was made by Morris & Co. and erected in memory of Robert Donaldson, a Glasgwegian iron merchant, in 1893 (A.C. Sewter, The Stained Glass of William Morris and his Circle, 1974-5, I, pl. 612; II, p. 80). The cartoon for the companion subject seems to be lost, but those for the figures of the angels holding a scroll are reproduced in Aymer Vallance, The Decorative Art of Sir Edward Burne-Jones , Master Art Annual, 1900, p. 9, as in the collection of Harold Rathbone. The two designs representing Christ blessing children were often re-used by the Morris firm at later dates, some of these versions appeared in churches in Birmingham, Eastbourne, Liverpool, Nottingham, Bermuda and elsewhere. 1998 Christies