Tag Archives: stained glass

Exhibition on Louis C. Tiffany features Stained Glass Window from Corning Museum

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Louis Comfort Tiffany, The Righteous Shall Receive A Crown of GloryLouis C. Tiffany and the Art of Devotion, an exhibit currently on view at the Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA), in New York City, showcases the array of church decorations and memorials that Louis C. Tiffany (1848-1933) produced beginning in the early 1880s.  On view through January 20, 2013, the exhibit shows the breadth and depth of the firm’s oeuvre, and the place Tiffany Studios created for itself in American religious art.

The centerpiece of the exhibition is a Corning Museum artwork, The Righteous Shall Receive a Crown of Glory (96.4.230). The window, which measures 12’ 10” x W. 8’1, was created for the United Methodist Church of Waterville, New York, around 1901.

Warren Bunn, CMOG’s manager of exhibitions and collections examines the window pre-conservation with Drew Anderson, conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and independent curator Diane Wright.

Warren Bunn, CMOG’s manager of exhibitions and collections examines the window pre-conservation with Drew Anderson, conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and independent curator Diane Wright.

When the window was removed from the church, it went into the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Randall. The couple offered it to the Corning Museum in 1996. At that time, it was too large for the Museum to display in any of its gallery areas and needed restoration work. However, since one of the most important roles of a Museum is to collect and preserve important objects for the future, the donation was accepted and the window stabilized for storage.

Curators and conservators from The Corning Museum of Glass and the Metropolitan Museum of Art examine the window to assess conservation treatment.

Curators and conservators from The Corning Museum of Glass and the Metropolitan Museum of Art examine the window to assess conservation treatment.

When MOBIA began planning its Tiffany exhibition, it approached the Corning Museum about this window. Several institutions then came together to complete conservation work on this beautiful object. CMoG offered its existing conservation report to facilitate work on the window. The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass offered conservation studio space where the treatment could take place. MOBIA incorporated the cost of the restoration into its exhibition budget.

The window was secured in 12 custom-built crates at CMOG and taken to the Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass in July 2012.  Over the summer, it was restored by Drew Anderson, a conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art who specializes in stained glass.

Preparing to install at MOBIA

Preparing to install at MOBIA.

When the exhibit at MOBIA ends, the window will come back to Corning, and the curatorial staff are working on trying to find a space to display it. We’ll keep you posted.

In place at MOBIA. The window measures 12’ 10” x W. 8’1.

In place at MOBIA. The window measures 12’ 10” x W. 8’1.

Surprise Valentine’s Day Proposal

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Gian and Christine

She said yes! Christine Sullivan thought that she was spending Valentine’s Day just visiting The Corning Museum of Glass with Gian Mastroianni, but she had no idea that they would be leaving engaged to be married.

Said Gian, “The ring took forever to plan, but the proposal only took about a week.” With the help of Rene Miller, guest services supervisor here at the Museum, they planned the perfect spot for the proposal. “We talked and she sent pictures of different areas in the Museum, but we finally decided on the Tiffany window.”

Visiting from the Buffalo, NY area, this was the couple’s first time to the Museum. They started off the day touring the galleries and watching the Flameworking Demo. Then, with Christine unaware of Gian’s plans, they went to see the live Hot Glass Show.  With the help of the Hot Glass Show team, Christine was selected as the winner of a drawing for a piece of glass and instructed to go to the Modern Glass Gallery to claim her prize.

When Christine unwrapped her “prize,” a pink handkerchief glass vase, just like the one they had seen made at the Hot Glass Show, the ring was hidden inside.

Congratulations and best wishes to the happy couple!

Taking down The Glass Wall, Part 2

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With team work and good planning the de-installation of Brian Clarke’s The Glass Wall went off without a hitch!

Removing the glass panes one by one

In three days our team of three preparators, one collections and exhibitions manager, two conservators, and two outside contractors removed all 245 panes of glass, and all of the hanging hardware and steel support structures. Most of the work was carried out by our outstanding preparators who had to climb on ladders and scaffolding to reach and release all of the glass components.

Each large section of the window is made up of 35 smaller sections held in place with hardware and various set-screws. To dismantle, one person supports the adjacent glass panes, and the other loosens the set-screws. Once released, each panel is then handed down to another person and placed into specially constructed slotted crates. What makes it particularly difficult, is all of this is done some 30+ feet above the floor level!

Stephen hands off a glass pane

Most of the panes were in excellent condition, although they were extremely dirty. There were about a dozen panes with loose cames which will need to be reattached. One pane had an old break in it. It had been repaired previously, but needed a little clean up in the lab.

The glass panes are packed for safe transportation

One thing we hadn’t thought about in our extensive planning was that the panes would be slightly loose in the slotted crates. We realized it quickly and improvised with small squares of volara (closed-cell polyethylene foam) and acid-free board tucked around the panes to prevent them from rattling while they were moved. We also found that some of the panes were slightly wider than others. Luckily the difference was not a big enough to be a problem.

Now that the panes are safely in our offsite storage facility, the next step is to clean them and repair the loose caming.

See more photos of taking down The Glass Wall: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjy8cdZ4

by Warren Bunn, Collections and Exhibitions Manager and Astrid van Giffen, Assistant Conservator

Taking down The Glass Wall

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Brian Clarke's The Glass Wall

A new year brings new challenges. One of our challenges this year is to deinstall the very large Brian Clarke window, The Glass Wall. It is currently located just inside the Museum’s western façade along the ramp to the upper entrance of the magic of glass theatre. It is made up of seven large panels each with 35 individual panes with metal supports suspended from steel cables with specially made hardware. The window is 6.3 m (20 ½ ft) tall and 22.4 m (73 ½ ft) long and hangs at the second story level. This is going to be a BIG project!

Brian Clarke's The Glass Wall with the GlassMarket Cafe below.

This spring we are renovating the GlassMarket Café, which sits in the space directly below the window. While the renovations occur (the Café reopens in April) the location is unsafe for the window. Deinstalling the window will also allow us to clean it and repair the loose cames (the aluminum strips around each glass pane) found on some of the panes.  The size and location of the window make any kind of treatment in situ almost impossible. The window badly needs to be cleaned since neither it nor the interior of the building’s windows have been cleaned since it was installed in 2000.

A loose came on the bottom of a pane.

As you can imagine, deinstalling such a huge object is not a process that is undertaken lightly. Dismantling the window requires a lot of planning and preparation. Over the last few months we’ve been having meetings with everyone involved to do just that. This includes the Museum’s conservators, preparators, registrars, and operations managers, as well as an outside contractor who will provide scaffolding and remove the hardware for hanging the window.

The Glass Wall. At the top of the ramp there is about a 2 foot gap between the window and the ramp.

We also had to think about how to store the 245 panes of glass while the window is off display. We had special crates made with slots for the panes which will make transporting and housing the glass safe and compact. The window will be dismantled and taken to our warehouse where we will set up a special area to clean the glass and do any necessary repairs.

Specially made crates with slots to hold individual panes.

The Glass Wall. At the bottom of the ramp there is only a very small gap between the window and the ramp.

After the scaffolding has been put up, the window will be carefully removed, pane by pane, by our preparators. Any loose cames they come across will be temporarily secured with tape. Once all the glass has been safely packed and taken away, the support system can be taken down by our operations team and the outside contractors.

The whole process starts this week!

Greener Galleries

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Recently, the Museum completed the installation of a Burne-Jones stained glass panel, St. Matthew (2009.2.31) in the Modern Gallery. A new case was designed and constructed, and after a number of months of prototyping by the Curatorial and Operations departments, the display was lit completely with LED lights, with the desired lighting effect achieved using a combination of both cool and warm LED fixtures.

This is our first glass collection display to use LED lighting, and we hope to retro-fit a number of other displays in the coming years with these cool and efficient lights. There are approximately 2,600 standard light fixtures directed at objects in our galleries, and every day we change about 20 bulbs. With an estimated lifespan 100,000 hours, moving to LED lighting will result in savings for the Museum in both energy costs and staff time.

-Warren Bunn, Registrar