Issue 30 • 2020 • Reframing Stained Glass in the Nineteenth-Century British World: Culture, Aesthetics, Contexts

Stained glass was a ubiquitous art form in the nineteenth century, present in churches, railway stations, museums, and homes. Nevertheless, it has rarely been discussed outside of specialist fields. This issue of 19 brings together scholars from across a range of disciplines in order to examine, interpret, and reframe stained glass from the widest possible variety of perspectives in order to demonstrate its rich potential. We explore how this entrepreneurial and technologically innovative medium used ‘traditional’ forms not just to articulate well-worn stories, but to tell new ones in self-avowedly modern settings, revealing much about nineteenth-century culture, aesthetics, and contexts. The editors wish to acknowledge that the colloquium at which many of the ideas for these articles were first aired was funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013)/ERC Grant Agreement n.295463. They also wish to remember with affection one of the participants, Dr Nicola Gordon Bowe, a leading authority on the Arts and Crafts Movement in Ireland, whose unexpected death in 2018, after a short illness, was a sad loss to stained glass scholarship. Cover image: Robert McCausland, Detail of The Union of Commerce and Industry, 1899, Old City Hall, Toronto. To the right, behind Industry, are representatives of trade unions. To the left are allegorical and highly racialized embodiments of the continents: Africa carries an ivory tusk, while Europe carries a miniature of the Venus de Milo, discovered in 1820 and hailed as one of the finest works of Greek sculpture. Behind is the bustling modern port. © edk7/flickr.

Editors: Kate Nichols (Guest Editor), Jasmine Allen (Guest Editor), Gareth Atkins (Guest Editor)