See the Capital Region Through Rose-Colored Glass…

One of the world’s most luminous art forms, stained glass will color your visit to the Capital Region. Both beautiful and historically significant, stained glass has been adorning the architecture of the world’s structures since the tenth century A.D. Since the excavation of Germany’s Lorsch Abbey, which yielded the earliest known example of pictorial stained glass in the world, the art form has undergone a remarkable evolution of design, style, palette and application.

While not strictly a religious art form, stained glass is most commonly seen in churches and religious structures because of the medieval church’s extensive patronage of the arts. As such, the tradition continued. Many of the locations on this tour are, in fact, churches.

Stops feature some of the most vibrantly colored, intricately detailed examples of the stained glass art form. More than half of these are examples of the Gothic or the Gothic Revival style: the time period in which stained glass craftsmanship and artistry had reached its zenith. Non-gothic examples include the dome of Florida’s Historic State Capitol which is lauded for its domed shape - an ambitious feat of engineering and artistry from the early 1900s.

Crossing cultural boundaries and architectural styles from Gothic to Contemporary, stained glass is truly an art form that can enchant, enlighten and inspire all people. Look out at the Capital Region through the kaleidoscope of its historic stained glass...

Resources:

Stained Glass Association of America, Raytown, MO, http://www.stainedglass.org

University of Milwaukee Department of Art History, Milwaukee, WI, http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/ArtHistory/

Bob Jones and Historic Florida Consulting, LLC, Tallahassee, FL, http://www.historicfloridaconsulting.com

The following sites are designed for Group Tours only.  Please contact our offices for more information:

White House

Significance: Construction in small cities in the rural South in the mid-19th century was made easier by regional production, and railroads that distributed building supplies. Tallahassee had suppliers and close ties to Bainbridge, Georgia, that was a regional hub for manufacturing and distribution. The clear glass in the front door and the interior hall door of the White House has acid etched geometric designs that were stenciled onto the glass. Such ornamental glass would have been prepared by the sheet in a regional glass production shop. The etching was applied to clear window sheet glass as well as colored sheet glass, as the etched glass in Bethel Missionary Baptist Church attests to. This ornamental sheet glass was then sold through regional supply centers to serve the construction industry. This ornamental etched glass has been found across north Florida for buildings dating from the 1840s to 1900. This affordable ornamental glass was turned into an impressive work of window art by the craftsman what cut the diamond pieces of glass and secured them with precisely fitted wooden moldings.
Type of Building: Italianate frame two-story house
Age: 1857
Artist/Craftsman/Company: unknown
Type of Glass: Mouth blown clear glass with acid etched stencil pattern
Research Sources: Florida Master Site File

St. John’s Episcopal Church

Significance: The church contains rare and excellent examples of Aesthetic Period leaded stained glass. The English Aesthetic fashion in building ornamentation and furnishings flourished briefly in the 1870s and 1880s, and influenced American design. The Aesthetic Style was an eclectic style that borrowed and blended diverse historic styles and geometric patterns. The St. John’s three windows in the north wall are an excellent example of this eclectic collage of style. They and the "Madonna and Child" window are a few examples that exist in Florida, although several documented by the Colgate Studio are in Christ’s Episcopal Church, Pensacola. The "Madonna and Child" window was probably placed following the damage of an 1886 hurricane. The stencil designed diamond windows with medallions were more affordable than figure windows, but a highly effective way to decorate a Gothic church with Gothic Styled leaded windows. The Shiloh/Anderson memorial windows in the west wall from 1885, are truer to the Gothic form. The entire ensemble is a prized 1880s period piece.
Type of Building: Gothic Style masonry church
Age: 1881, 1885 & 1887
Artist/Craftsman/Company: unknown (possibility Edward Colgate Studio of N.Y.)
Type of Glass: Painted antique and rolled cathedral colored glass.
Research Sources: Carl Stauffer. God Willing, pub. by St. Johns Episcopal, Tallahassee,1949.

Trinity United Methodist Church

Significance: One of nine "Gold window," installations Willet Stained Glass Studios, Philadelphia, produced for Florida churches. "Gold windows" were first made in 1950, but the rising cost of gold discontinued their production by 1980. The Trinity altar windows are significant for their art and production technique. Studio owner Henry Willet wanted to produce windows that had artistic interest in reflected light, not just sun light. Marguerite Gaudin, a designer for the studio, developed a technique of accomplishing repose’ sculpting on sheet lead and soldering this to a leaded window. The bas-relief was made reflective by the application of gold and palladium leaf. Sometimes their bas-relief sheet lead was left un-gilded. The Trinity windows have gold and palladium gilding. The window design is in the Gothic Revival Style. The figures are repose’ and the colored glass is mouth blown, or "antique" glass.
Type of Building: Colonial Revival masonry church.
|Age: 1963
Artist/Craftsman/Company: Willet Stained Glass, Marguerite Gaudin, designer and developer of "gold window" technique.
Type of Glass: "Gold window," leaded antique colored glass, with bas-relief sheet lead overlay surfaced with gold and palladium gilding.
Research Sources: Willet Studio library

Bethel Missionary Baptist Church
Tallahassee Museum

Significance: The Tallahassee congregation of Bethel Baptist formed as an off-shoot of the famous Rev. James Page’s Bethel Baptist Church, from the Bel Air community south of Tallahassee, after emancipation in 1865. As an expression of the congregation’s cohesion, energy, and ambition, they built an impressive brick Gothic Revival church by 1870. Into this church they placed leaded stained glass windows shortly afterwards, making it a downtown and regional landmark and a statement of congregational pride. Bethel was one of the first, if not the first, emancipated black congregation in Florida to build a high architectural style church. The ornamental windows are primarily composed of machine rolled colored glass known in the industry as "cathedral glass." Some of the window’s ornamental elements are decorated with acid etched geometric stencil designs (see White House description). Bethel Church from the Bel Air community is preserved at the Tallahassee Museum.
Type of Building: Classical Revival brick church
Age: ca.1888
Artist/Craftsman/Company: unknown
Type of Glass: Cathedral rolled glass, some antique
Research Sources:

State Seal, Museum of Florida History (J.A. Oertal’s 1857 painted disc)
R. A. Gray Building

Significance: This design was of Florida’s first state seal, and the painted glass disc was installed in the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., in 1857. It is an excellent example of stained glass treated as a painter’s pallet common to that period. The painterly approach of using colored enamels as a substitute for full colored glass developed during the Renaissance. Technicians developed various vitreous colored paints, and it became the custom to paint the colors onto the glass rather than assemble colored glasses with lead. During the Gothic Revival of the early 19th century, mid-19th century in the United States, stained glass craftsmen returned to the ancient techniques of assembling a window design from various pieces of glass rather than painting on a big piece of glass. Painting with colored enamels is still practiced in some studios today, but it does not dominate the design approach to stained glass as it once did.
Type of Building: House of Representatives, Washington D.C. Removed to Tallahassee in 1951.
Age: 1857
Artist/Craftsman/Company: J.A. Oertal
Type of Glass: Mouth blown clear painted with color enamels
Research Sources: Museum information

Historic Capitol, Dome

Significance: An art glass dome was included in a 1902 remodeling of the Florida State Capitol. The initial dome did not fit, but apparently by 1904, the installation was complete. The art glass disappeared at an unknown date, and this current recreation is based on pieces of the broken dome found within a wall and other architectural evidence. During the restoration of the capital to its 1902 configuration from 1980 to 1982, the twelve paneled dome with central oculus was recreated. Stained glass domes were quite ambitious engineering and artistic accomplishments attempted from the 1880s into the 1920s, most often in state capitols and courthouses. The domes had a great artistic and architectural impact, but Florida’s Historic Capitol dome was probably doomed by a persistent roof leak.
Type of Building: Neo-Classical masonry
Age: 1904/1981
Artist/Craftsman/Company (any information on this, if available
Type of Glass: rolled cathedral and opalescent
Research Sources: Christine Galbraith, "Historical Documentary Research Project, 1902 Florida Capitol Restoration," Historic Tallahassee Preservation Board, 1979.

Prepared by Historic Florida Consulting, LLC with Research Assistance by Bob Jones

Other Stained Glass of Interest

Bethel A.M.E. Church

Brief: 17 ornamental opalescent windows. Creator unknown, 1922. 6 windows are circular. Included are 3 fine enamel portraits of church leaders.

Goodwood Museum & Gardens

Brief: Ornamental leaded clear glass over-door transoms. Creator unknown, 1910.  2 windows in main house and 1 in water tower. Lead fan design with scrolling pattern in upper corners.

Maclay House
Maclay Gardens State Park

Brief: One ornamental leaded clear glass over-door transom. Creator unknown, date unknown. Leaded fan design probably installed with 1921-1925 remolding.

Brokaw –McDougall House

Brief:11 geometric acid etched clear sidelights and transoms. Creator unknown, c. 1856, Windows surround front and back door and balcony door.

Contemporary Stained Glass

Florida State University
Doak Campbell Stadium

Brief: A three-story stained glass portrait of FSU football coaching legend Bobby Bowden looking over the field among a sea of fans in the stadium. The 20 x 30 foot window was installed over the entrance of the Moore Athletic Center. Created by Florida State artist Robert Bischoff, his wife JoAnn, and 12 Florida State students in the Master Craftsman Program, the window is among the five largest stained glass windows in the United States
Florida State University
Created by Florida State artist Robert Bischoff and his wife JoAnn.

St. Stephen Lutheran Church

East Stained-Glass Window (5’ x 18’), Oct. 1, 1995
Created by Marie Coleman and Patsy Barber
"The stained glass contains all five of the liturgical colors - green, blue, red, white and purple with over 500 pieces. The window was dedicated to the memory of Anna Bartels.

Stained Glass Group Tours are available for booking through the Tallahassee Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.  For booking and tour information, contact Sales, AllenL@VisitTallahassee.com  or call 850.606.2305.

For a SAMPLE tour itinerary, click here.