Trinity Episcopal Church - Table of Contents

Chancel Windows - Trinity Episcopal Church
389 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, NY

Designer: John LaFarge
Date installed: 1886

John LaFarge designed five windows as a set for the chancel with scenes of Christ's life based on Flemish and Italian Renaissance paintings.

TEXT CONTINUED BENEATH PHOTOS


Click on illustrations for larger size -- and additional information

The five windows

Ascension

Transfiguration

Transfiguration

Transfiguration

Transfiguration

Edward Ingersoll

Edward Ingersoll

Epiphany

The Repose in Egypt

The Repose in Egypt

The Repose in Egypt

Resurrection Window or Noli Me Tangere

Detail - Resurrection Window or Noli Me Tangere

The White Home

Trinity Church possesses some of the finest stained glass in America.

The five magnificent windows in the apse and the rose window are by John LaFarge who developed a new method of manufacturing semi-translucent glass that simulated painted effects.

Opalescent glass is a system of manipulating glass to alter its thickness and surface, giving it a milky appearance. The glass is colored chemically in process, eliminating the need for surface painting except for face and hand details. LaFarge's techniques developed a whole new industry of glassmaking.

Lafarge's great contemporary, Louis Comfort Tiffany, popularized the process.

Trinity Church is one of only two places in the world where the work of these two art-glass pioneers sit side by side. Altogether there are five Tiffany windows in addition to ten superb items of LaFarge.

Between 1886 and 1897, eighteen impressive memorial windows were installed in the sanctuary

Trinity's Church Furnishing Society raised $56,000 for refurbishing the building and contracted with the LaFarge Decorative Art Company to decorate the chancel.

After traveling to Buffalo to meet with the architect and Building and Furnishing committees, LaFarge received additional contracts for the Rose Window, 5 lancet windows, and for 14 temporary nave windows. When the church opened in 1886, all the glass was by LaFarge.

Over the course of the years most of the temporary windows were replaced with memorials done by some of the major glass studios and/ or designers of the nineteenth century.


Special thanks to Trinity Episcopal Church rector, Cameron Miller, for his cooperation and assistance
Photos and their arrangement © 2003 Chuck LaChiusa
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