When his mother moved into her house decades ago, my handyman/friend Robert said, all the houses had beautiful stained-glass windows. The windows were eventually removed, he added, blaming addicts who he believes sold them to buy drugs. (I suspect that addicts were not the only ones.)
We were discussing stained-glass windows because he was attaching a clear etched-glass window over my living room window (to ensure that it would fit my window, we turned it sideways). Weeks earlier, he had installed a small stained-glass window with a tulip design over the window in my newly redone kitchen.
My next-door neighbor has what appears to be an original stained-glass window that was installed when houses on the block were built in the 1920s by a well-known contractor of Tudor-style homes, John McClatchy (there’s a plaque in my walkway). I assume that the builder placed stained glass in some houses and not in others, because mine did not have any. When I moved in nearly 20 years ago, the old original windows were still in place.
I bought both my stained and etched windows at different auctions. I’ve always loved stained-glass windows but could never buy one at auction. I was always out-bidded by dealers with deep pockets who I knew would sell them. That seems to have changed lately, as the price of the windows have become friendlier to my pocket book.
Recently, about a half-dozen of them came up at auction but I was no longer in the market. Several were described as Victorian-era windows with some damage, but the stained glass was intact on most. The prices on two of those were a bit higher than I was willing to pay, but the others – along with the clear etched glass windows also for sale – were affordable.
The clear glass ones – just as mine – had new wood frames. And their prices were way below $50.
Robert wondered how old my windows were; I wasn’t sure. The auction house noted that its pieces were 19th century and early 20th century.
Stained glass has always been associated with churches, and at one auction, a badly damaged church window in pieces was for sale. When we think of stained glass these days, though, Tiffany comes readily to mind. A few months ago, I saw an excellent exhibit in New York of lamps by Louis Comfort Tiffany.
Here are some stained-glass windows from a recent auction, along with my etched-glass window: Victorian stained-glass window, $190.
