Stained Glass - Table of Contents
Henry Holiday (Holliday)
1839-1927
English historical genre and landscape painter, stained glass designer, illustrator and sculptor.
Source information below: Albert & Victoria Museum (online Dec. 2016)
Place of origin: London (made) ... 1886-1890 (designed) ... Holiday, Henry, born 1839 - died 1927 (designer) ... Clear and colourless glass, painted and stained ... Museum number: C.11-2004 ... Sacred Silver & Stained Glass, room 83, case S4
Henry Holiday was a designer of stained glass. Between 1863 and 1891 he worked as a freelance designer (not on an exclusive contract) for the glass makers Powells at Whitefriars in London. In 1891 he set up his own stained glass studio, where he presumably made panels as well as designing them.
The image on this panel was probably taken from a painting 'Aspasia in the Pynx', which Holiday painted about 1886-8. Aspasia was the mistress of Pericles, the great and controversial Athenian leader in Ancient Greece. The Pynx was an area of land where the Greek popular assembly met. Holiday included this painting in his book 'Reminiscences of My Life' which was published about 1914. The sitter was Miss Kathleen Douglas-Pennant (later Lady Falmouth), daughter of Lord Penrhyn.
Detail below:
"He took over as stained glass
window designer at Powell's Glass Works, after Burne-Jones left in 1861
to work for Morris & Co. He fulfilled more than 300 commissions,
mainly for American clients. As a painter he excelled in drapery, producing figure subjects close in spirit to the work of Rossetti. He illustrated Lewis Carroll's 'The Hunting of the Snark', and the first edition of 'Through the Looking Glass'. He left Powell's and set up his own stained glass works in 1891." - Visit Cumbria: Henry Holiday |
Henry Holiday
was a painter as well as an established stained glass artist who had
commissions both in England (Trinity College Cambridge, Birkenhead New
Ferry Liverpool, St.James's Church, Kirkby Church and Huyton Church in
Liverpool) and America (amongst others the Holy Trinity Church in
Manhattan New York). He was also an illustrator, his most important
illustrations being the ones he made for Lewis Carroll's book 'The
Hunting of the Snark'. Holiday's designs for the memorial window in Westminster Abbey and the west windows of St. Mary Magdalene's church in Paddington reflected the influence of Italian Renaissance art on his work. Later on, in 1891 Holiday became dissatisfied with the working methods of the commercial stained glass firms and set off to establish his own workshop in Hampstead in London [in 1891]. |
There
are 17 stained glass windows in the church, all memorials to various
members of the Rhinelander family. Henry Holiday in England designed
them, and he made them all except the west window which after his death
was completed by his daughter from his designs. These windows are the only complete cycle of windows remaining by Henry Holiday... |
... from 1863 he worked primarily as a stained-glass
artist, particularly in collaboration with the glass manufacturers
James Powell & Sons and Heaton, Butler & Bayne. After visiting Italy in 1867 he abandoned his early Pre-Raphaelite style for one inspired by Classical and Renaissance art, aiming to create a 'modern' style of stained glass no longer dependent on medievalism. In 1891, dissatisfied with the working methods of the commercial stained-glass firms, he established his own workshop in Hampstead, London, and experimented successfully with making pot-metal glass. Many of Holiday's later commissions were for American churches; his windows (1898-1925) in Holy Trinity, Manhattan, New York, reveal the influence of the Arts and Crafts Movement in their emphatic leading and use of richly textured glass. |
"[Holiday's] involvement with the Arts and Crafts movement led him to experiment with making his own glass. He was particularly partial to using slab glass, its uneven surface creating a jewel-like effect." - Stained Glass Museum: The Ministry of Christ