This celebrated design forms a focal point of one of Morris & Company's finest works in stained glass, the east win- dow of Saint Martin's Church, Brampton, Cumbria (fig. 13). After founding the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877, Morris was averse to putting new glass into medieval churches, and the number of major projects after this date was necessarily limited. The ten windows at Brampton are therefore exceptional, forming an inspirational link with the client and architect that had rarely been achieved since the firm's heyday in the 1860s. The new church at Brampton was designed in 1875 by Morris's old friend Philip Webb, and con- secrated in 1878; it was under the patronage of the Earls of Carlisle, whose country house, Naworth Castle, is nearby. Charles Howard, the father of Burne-Jones's patron George Howard (see cat. nos. 4oa-l), led the campaign for rebuilding the church, and on his death in 1879, the east window was nominated as his memorial, Morris determining that it should consist of entirely new designs: three tiers of subjects in the five-light window, making fifteen figures in all In a letter of August 27, 1880, to George Howard, he described how "the lower part of the centre light is filled with a 'Pelican in her piety', i.e. the bird tearing her breast to feed her young; this legend from the bestiaries having made the pelican one of the types of Christ, On the south side of this symbol stands first St. Dorothy clad in purple and blue and next St. George in red golden armour; on the north side are first the Virgin Mary clad all [in] varying shades of blue and next St. Martin in the act of dividing his cloak with the beggar, his armour is coppery in hue, and his cloak crimson. The whole background of the win- dow is a diaper of flowers of the deepest colours and much bro- ken mosaic-fashion." 1 At the apex of the center light, above the Pelican, is a figure of Christ as the Good Shepherd, with two angelic minstrels on each side and in the middle tier below a series of five smaller angels with scrolls. 2 A later letter to George Howard recorded Morris's relief "that you think the east window a success; I was very nervous about it, as the cartoons were so good that I should have been quite upset if I had not done them something like justice." 3 This remark is ironic in the context of one of Burne-Jones's bitter entries in his account book, under May 1880: "To Brampton window — a colossal work of fifteen subjects — a masterpiece of style, a chef d'oeuvre of invention, a capo d'opera of conception — fifteen compartments — a Herculean labour — hastily estimated in a moment of generous friendship for £200, if the firm regards as binding a contract made from a noble impulse, and in a mercenary spirit declines to re-open the question, it must remain — but it will remain equally a monu- ment of art and ingratitude — £200." 4 The figures of Saint Martin and Saint George (Burne- Jones's first remodeling of the latter saint for stained glass since the Peterhouse design of 1871; see cat. no. 85) became two of the firm's most popular representations, both being repeated over forty times up until the 1920s; the cartoon for Saint George and those for the Good Shepherd and the five angels with scrolls are in the Carlisle Museum and Art Gallery. 5 Much has been made of the Pelican design, particularly the swirling tree trunk that supports the nest, as an influence and prototype for the international style now known as Art Nouveau. Even before its citation in Stephan Tschudi Madsens seminal study, Sources of Art Nouveau (Oslo, 1956), it had been picked out by Nikolaus Pevsner, along with the title page to A. H. Mackmurdo's Wrens City Churches (1883), for illustration in Pioneers of the Modern Movement, from William Morris to Walter Gropius y first published in 1936. Burne-Jones had made no sudden breakthrough into modern design, however, for what Madsen called his "serpentine linearism" was just a slightly more radical example of his constant fasci- nation with the conversion of organic form — drapery, wing, or plant — into a satisfying and energetic two-dimensional arrangement. A similar linear malleability is evident in the twisting tree trunk in The Beguiling of Merlin (1873-74; cat. no. 64), while equal forms of abstracted naturalism may be found in other decorative designs, such as dynamic sketches in the "Secret" Book of Designs, dating from the 1880s (cat. no. 140). 1. Quoted in Arthur Perm, Brampton Church and Its Windows (Brampton, 1993,> PP. 58-60 2. See Sewter 1974-75, vol. 1, pi. 548, vol. 2, pp. 29-30. 3. Penn, Brampton Church, p. 60. 4. Sewter 1974-75, vol. 2, p. 30. 5. Ibid., vol. i, pis. 549-54.
Fitzwilliam work list 1880 ... designed window for Brampton - with many figures... also several of the Brampton figures were coloured in wax
The church is by Philip Webb. The entire window is by BJ. See the entry in his A/c book dated May 1880: "To Brampton Window - a colossal Work of fifteen subjects - a masterpiece of style, a chef d'oeuvre of invention, a capo d'opera of conception - fifteen compartments - a herculean labour - hastily estimated in a moment of generous friendship for £200 , if the firm regards as binding a contract made from a noble impulse, and a mercenary spirit declines to re-open the question, it must remain - but it will remain equally a monument of art and ingratitude - £200'. The entry in the catalogue of designs is dated March 1881.