Ten original designs for Coventry Cathedral stained glass windows

John Piper, as designer, and Patrick Reyntiens, as glassmaker, were commissioned by the Coventry Cathedral Reconstruction Committee to produce the Baptistery window in 1955. Spalding describes it as '85ft high (21.9m) and 56ft wide (approx 18m) and contains 198 lights'. (F. Spalding, John and Myfanwy Piper, Lives in Art, Oxford, 2009, p. 369). The rebuilt Cathedral was consecrated in 1962. The technical term 'light', in the craft of stained glass, refers to any individual sub-section of an overall window design which is fitted within stone or concrete mullions. Piper produced individual mixed media designs for all 198 'lights', each one carefully numbered according to its intended position. A group of them are offered in the present lot. Generally speaking, the designs for the 'lights' at the top of the window were less complex and detailed than those produced for the lower levels. The overall design of the Baptistery window is abstract, with a central burst of light which is intended to represent the Holy Spirit (an appropriate motif for the rite of Baptism). The window may also be read as an abstract landscape, the lower levels having the colours of earth and vegetation with bluer tones in the upper part indicating sky and surrounding a central sunburst.

We are very grateful to Rev. Dr. Stephen Laird for his assistance in cataloguing the present lot and lots 411-418.