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Lot Essay
A MID-SUMMER MONTH'S BLOOM
JOHN LA FARGE'S HOLLYHOCK WINDOW
Hollyhocks were one of John La Farge’s favorite subjects. He painted them throughout his career, and designed a number of windows around them in the early 1880s. Windows of hollyhocks were created for Frederick Lothrop Ames’ Boston house (now in the St. Louis Art Museum) and as part of an ensemble for Thomas Ellwood Grover’s Canton, MA, house (now in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia).
This window was one of two made for the Baltimore banker, railroad magnate, and millionaire Michael Jenkins (1842-1915). The other, Cherry Blossoms Against Spring Freshet, is now in the Yale University Art Gallery (inv. no. 2003.61.1). A similar window is in the collection of the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art in Winter Park, FL. La Farge designed another window of the same pattern for the New York home of J. Pierpont Morgan, although whether it was made is unknown.
Michael Jenkins and his wife, Mary Isabel (d. 1911), were generous donors to the Catholic church and were both recognized by Pope Pius X with a knighthood and ladyship, respectively. When Jenkins died, his house was given to the church as a home for elderly women. It was torn down in 1951.
The window, a relatively simple design, dates to the earliest days of La Farge’s work in stained glass, when he was experimenting with types of glass made at Brooklyn flint-glass factories, before opalescent glass was readily available. Selected from rejects cast off by the glassmakers, the glass specimens are unique. The white glass in the flowers and borders is exceptionally fiery, excellent examples of the effect that charmed La Farge in opalescent glass.
– Julie L. Sloan, consultant in stained glass, writes about windows from her home in Lake Placid, NY. She works on stained-glass conservation projects as well, including Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple, and The Riverside Church in New York
JOHN LA FARGE'S HOLLYHOCK WINDOW
Hollyhocks were one of John La Farge’s favorite subjects. He painted them throughout his career, and designed a number of windows around them in the early 1880s. Windows of hollyhocks were created for Frederick Lothrop Ames’ Boston house (now in the St. Louis Art Museum) and as part of an ensemble for Thomas Ellwood Grover’s Canton, MA, house (now in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia).
This window was one of two made for the Baltimore banker, railroad magnate, and millionaire Michael Jenkins (1842-1915). The other, Cherry Blossoms Against Spring Freshet, is now in the Yale University Art Gallery (inv. no. 2003.61.1). A similar window is in the collection of the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art in Winter Park, FL. La Farge designed another window of the same pattern for the New York home of J. Pierpont Morgan, although whether it was made is unknown.
Michael Jenkins and his wife, Mary Isabel (d. 1911), were generous donors to the Catholic church and were both recognized by Pope Pius X with a knighthood and ladyship, respectively. When Jenkins died, his house was given to the church as a home for elderly women. It was torn down in 1951.
The window, a relatively simple design, dates to the earliest days of La Farge’s work in stained glass, when he was experimenting with types of glass made at Brooklyn flint-glass factories, before opalescent glass was readily available. Selected from rejects cast off by the glassmakers, the glass specimens are unique. The white glass in the flowers and borders is exceptionally fiery, excellent examples of the effect that charmed La Farge in opalescent glass.
– Julie L. Sloan, consultant in stained glass, writes about windows from her home in Lake Placid, NY. She works on stained-glass conservation projects as well, including Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple, and The Riverside Church in New York