The stained glass window in the historical monuments
France has the privilege and the task of preserving more stained-glass windows before the Revolution than all the other countries of the world put together and the corpus of stained-glass windows laid in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries also forms an immense heritage. The Ministry of Culture contributes to the knowledge, protection, conservation and creation of this exceptionally rich heritage.
In France, more than 50,000 m² of pre-revolutionary stained glass windows were deposited on the eve of the Second World War, and the windows of the 19th and 20th centuries numbered in the tens of thousands.
All actions in favour of stained glass are coordinated by the Directorate-General for Heritage and Architecture and implemented by the Regional Directorates for Cultural Affairs (Regional Conservations of Historical Monuments), Services of National Competence and Public Institutions of the Ministry of Culture. Contemporary creation is not left out, strongly stimulated since the 1980s by the direction générale de la création artistique. These actions are carried out in connection with the world of research and university, specialized associations and regional departments of the inventory of cultural heritage.
Knowledge and dissemination of research results
Identifying, studying and making known these precious and fragile works are indispensable actions for their conservation. A methodology adapted to the specificities of the stained glass window in a monumental context was developed within the International Committee of Corpus vitrearum (CVI), an international organization born after the Second World War. The guidelines thus drafted and regularly updated ensure the coherence of the international collection, the objective being the exhaustive publication of historical stained glass windows, following an archaeological and critical approach. The French Corpus Vitrearum Committee coordinates the work being done in our country.
In France, faced with the unique importance of the number of works preserved, a particular challenge had to be met. The only publication of monographs following the principles of the Corpus vitrearum, too slow, was not suitable. At the instigation of Jean Taralon, inspector general of historical monuments (1909-1996), and Louis Grodecki, professor of universities (1910-1982), the principles of a rapid national inventory, or «pre-corpus», were defined. The new enterprise was entrusted in 1972 to a team of researchers who, integrated in 1979 at the service of the General Inventory, became the «Vitrail Cell», with the primary mission of Census of the ancient stained glass windows of France. The aim was to preserve the memory of a little known heritage and to create an indispensable research tool. Since 2005, researchers from the «Cellule vitrail» have been made available to the CNRS at André Chastel Centre, Art History Research Laboratory (UMR 8150 CNRS-Sorbonne University-Ministry of Culture) at theNational Institute of Art History, thanks to theMinistry of Culture/CNRS framework agreement.
This objective is now achieved with the publication, in 2021, of the last volume of the series, which includes XI. Now, all the French stained glass windows before the Revolution are documented, photographed and studied according to a historical, technical and critical approach. An important part of the data collected is available on the Open Wealth Platform (palissy base) and on the sites of the regional departments of the General Inventory of Cultural Heritage which have contributed to the successive photographic campaigns.
The volumes of the Census of the ancient stained glass windows of France form a tool containing the identification and a brief study of pre-revolutionary stained glass windows, preserved or documented.
I The stained glass windows of Paris, the Paris region, Picardie and Nord-Pas-de-CalaisParis: Éditions du CNRS, 1978.
II The stained glass windows of the Centre and the Pays-de-la-Loire, Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 1981.
III Burgundy stained glass windows Franche-Comté and Rhône-Alpes, Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 1986.
IV The stained glass windows of Champagne-Ardenne, Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 1992.
V Michel Hérold, Françoise Gatouillat, The stained glass windows of Lorraine and Alsace, Paris, CNRS Éditions/Inventaire général, 1994.
VI Martine Callias Bey, Véronique Chaussé, Françoise Gatouillat, Michel Hérold, The stained glass windows of Haute-Normandie, Paris: CNRS Éditions/Éditions du Patrimoine, 2001.
VII Françoise Gatouillat, Michel Hérold, The stained glass windows of Brittany, Rennes, PUR, 2005.
VIII Martine Callias Bey, Véronique David, The stained glass windows of Basse-Normandie, Rennes, PUR, 2006.
IX Françoise Gatouillat, Michel Hérold, with the collaboration of Karine Boulanger and Jean-François Luneau, The stained glass windows of Auvergne and Limousin, Rennes, PUR, 2011.
XI Michel Hérold dir., Jean-Pierre Blin, Véronique David, Françoise Gatouillat, The stained glass windows of the south of France, Rennes, PUR, 2020.
X Karine Boulanger, The stained glass windows of Poitou-Charentes and Aquitaine, Rennes, PUR, June 2021.
Methods and sources of references
The elaboration of these volumes requires the most exhaustive bibliographic and documentary research possible, coupled with a study of the panels in situ or in a workshop, following a critical approach designed to identify the main restorations and transformations suffered by the works. From this work came the first regional syntheses.
Among the sources, particular mention should be made of the Heritage and Photography Library (MPP): archives of restorations, Historic Monuments Board Minutes, photographic collections, including the photomontages made before and after the restoration of the windows deposited in a preventive manner at the time of the Second World War, archives of experts and historians, archives of the workshops of glass painters, etc.
As early as the 1980s, the creation of a repertoire of 19th and 20th century glass painters was initiated, and a first version published in the Art review, in 1986. This set of over 1800 biographical notes of glass painters who have produced at least one work on French territory since the Middle Ages is being updated to be added to the autor base – biographical resources of the Open heritage platform.
Stained glass research is also based on a vocabulary shared by all. In addition to regional summaries and thematic studies, the importance of stained glass in French cultural heritage led in 2014 to propose a book for all audiences to present the history and quality of this precious heritage. The completion of the census justified celebrating the event in a special issue of the Art review, in 2021.
Stained glass windows by the thousands… Assessment of an inventory: the census of the ancient stained glass windows of France
Françoise Gatouillat, Michel Hérold and Véronique David, “Stained glass windows by the thousands… Assessment of an inventory: the census of the ancient stained glass windows of France», In Situ [Online], 6 | 2005, published on 15 May 2012, consulted on 22 August 2022. ;
Stained glass - Typological and technical vocabulary
Éditions du patrimoine, 2000, 440 pp.
Stained Glass – Fifth - 21st Century
Éditions du patrimoine, 2014, 592 p.
Dossier on stained glass, methods, studies, discoveries
Art Review, no. 214, vol. 4, 2021, December 2021, 144p.
Protect
The first stained-glass protections for historic monuments took place in the mid-19th century. They took into account all the heritage prior to the Revolution, but with priority attached to important ensembles.
However, the desire for completeness quickly led to the identification and protection of every fragment, and this movement accelerated with the destruction of the First World War. Nevertheless, in the field of stained glass, as in the field of architecture or works of art, the realisations that seemed too restored or of poor quality were excluded: for a long time and until the early 1970s, the abundant production of the 19th century has been ignored. Protection measures now take into account the heritage of the 19th and 20th centuries.
The field of protection is widening in time but also in typology, since there is an increased interest in the glazing of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Despite this extension, the French public and private heritage, old or more recent, is far from being covered and the effort must be continued in this direction.
A number of glass windows have sometimes been wrongly protected as movable objects, whereas these elements were incorporated into a building, and constitute, by its fencing, buildings by nature. Periodic protection reviews are carried out by the Regional Cultural Affairs Directorates, as in recent years in the Great East, in order to homogenize the protections and update the records of the national databases: merimée base describes the building whose windows appear as decoration worn in the palissy base. The homogenisation of protection then facilitates work planning and management.
Some statistics
More than 20,000 “glass” records are published in the Palissy database. of which more than 5,000 records relating to properties classified or inscribed under historical monuments and more than 200 records relating to elements relating to the stained glass window and fragments preserved in the material of the Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie (Historical Monuments Research Centre).
Conserve and restore
Periodic maintenance of the stained glass building is an essential preventive conservation measure.
If a window restoration program is envisaged, three requirements must be met:
- The conservation of the work itself, scientifically supported by the studies of the Historical Monuments Research Laboratory (LRMH) and conducted by qualified conservators;
- Taking account of the architectural context, based on the principles of Charter of Venice and the idea that any complement, carefully considered, must be distinguished from the original, to put the latter in the foreground, principle of legibility of the restoration;
- The preventive conservation of the work, that is to say its protection against environmental aggressions, most often by a double-canopy, placed on the outside of the stained glass window.
For the stained glass windows classified as historical monuments, the restoration is conducted under the mastery of a qualified architect, chief architect of historic monuments or architect meeting the criteria for qualification of the heritage code. The choice of the architect is free for the stained glass windows located in the buildings listed as historical monuments.
The interventions are elaborated by the owners, project owners and conducted under the scientific and technical control of the State services (regional conservation of historical monuments in the DRAC) in close liaison with the stained glass scientific centre of the Research Laboratory for Historical Monuments, which contributes to the definition of the intervention protocol. Depending on the complexity and sensitivity of the interventions and according to the qualification requirements issued by the DRAC, the owner selects a workshop qualified as a glass painter or a specialized restorer who will carry out the work.
The Ministry of Culture published in 2006 the Manual of conservation, restoration and creation of stained glass.
Continue studies throughout conservation and restoration work
At the request of the Regional Cultural Affairs Directorates (Regional Conservation of Historical Monuments), scientific studies on the material knowledge of ancient stained glass windows and their conservation are coordinated in France by the stained glass scientific pole of the Laboratory for Research of Historical Monuments located in Champs-sur-Marne.
The LRMH conducts both medium- and long-term research to:
- identification of pathologies: identification of causes and processes of degradation;
- the development of conservation methods (cleaning treatments for glass and greyness; preservation materials (consolidating, gluing, etc.), preventive conservation: protective glass screens);
- the historical and technical knowledge of the works.
The main objectives of conservation-restoration case studies are to:
- establishing a scientific diagnosis based on laboratory observations and analyses;
- development of tests and treatment requirements (cleaning, bonding of broken parts, consolidation of firedamp);
- advice for the implementation of protective glass;
- advice to contractors and restaurateurs and monitoring of restorations.
All these studies involve:
- numerous analyses of materials and their alterations, of corrosion products of glass, grisailles and enamels, carried out at the LRMH, thanks to state-of-the-art scientific equipment, or in collaboration with University or CNRS laboratories;
- studies on the effectiveness and sustainability of conservation products (accelerated aging);
- Optimisation and innovation in the implementation of protective glass;
- observations on the environment of the work before and after protection (treatment of the climatic data collected by means of measurement centres placed at the glass windows). Feedback is extremely important.
Some of these studies are carried out within the framework of European projects: Constglass (2007-2010) and Nanomatch (2011-2014) on the development of consolidation materials "stained glass" file of the review Monumental in 2022.
The expertise of the stained glass researchers made available to the Centre André-Chastel, all members of the French Corpus Vitrearum Committee is regularly solicited. They contribute to the scientific and technical inspection of the State on historical monuments during restoration works alongside the project owners, contractors and companies.
This expertise contributes to the diagnosis of the condition of stained glass windows before their restoration: material history of stained glass windows and their possible transformations and restorations, evaluation of the degree of authenticity, participation in the identification of alterations. The researchers participate with the LRMH in the analysis and characterization of materials (glass, lead, paints, etc.), with a view to their fundamental knowledge and conservation. They may follow the progress of the proceedings and may sit on a scientific committee set up where appropriate. “Stained glass” researchers also carry out post-restoration authenticity reviews final reports to feed the documentary records of the works executed (DDOE), or intervention reports, thereby enriching basic research.
The researchers followed and follow the work carried out or in progress in the cathedrals of Amiens, Auch, Lyon, Reims, Soissons, Strasbourg or Notre-Dame de Paris, the Sainte-Chapelle de Riom, etc.
Consult the Seizure protocol for expertise of stained glass researchers, dated 2 March 2023, co-signed by the Director General of Heritage and Architecture and the Regional Delegate of the CNRS
Contributing to contemporary creation
Since the Second World War, in addition to the restoration of old stained glass windows, the creation of contemporary works has developed.
At the request of the Ministry of Culture for cathedrals, municipalities for parish churches before 1905, and clergy for new churches, artists were asked to work in association with glass painters.
The commissions have been numerous since the 1980s: Alberola, Honegger, Rouan, Viallat to the cathedral of Nevers, Dibbets to the cathedral of Blois, Soulages to Conques, Rabinowitch to the cathedral of Digne, Bertrand to Bourg-Saint-Andéol, Garouste to Talant, Debré and Asse in Lamballe, Bélzère in Rodez Cathedral, Knoebel in Reims Cathedral, Collin-Thiébaut in Tours Cathedral, Ellena in Strasbourg Cathedral, Bang Hai Ja in Chartres Cathedral, etc.
These contemporary creations, co-financed by the owners and the DRAC with the support of sponsors, are carried out, for the most part, within the framework of public orders in collaboration with the direction générale de la création artistique (Delegation to the visual arts).
Highlight the stained glass windows of France
The network of Cities and Countries of Art and History (VPah) has an active animation policy throughout France. In cities that have remarkable stained glass windows, this theme is thus highlighted: presentation of manufacturing techniques and tools, trade corporations, local workshops (Lobin in Tours, Simon-Marq in Reims, Lorin in Chartres), temporary and permanent exhibitions (City of Vitrail in Troyes, International Stained Glass Centre in Chartres… ), devices accessible to the blind, arts and cultural education devices including the experience of making a stained glass window.
Active patronage
For several decades, companies, foundations and associations have contributed to the efforts of the owners and the Ministry of Culture in favour of the conservation and restoration of the stained glass window, a major heritage both in its quality, its age and its importance, which represents for these organizations anxious to participate in the safeguarding of the cultural heritage, a privileged framework of intervention.
Through five partnership agreements signed between 1994 and 2017 with the Ministry of Culture, the financial and technological support of the Gaz de France Foundation (which became GDF-Suez in 2010 and Engie in 2020) has been essential for the safeguarding of major stained glass windows such as those of the cathedrals of Angers, Bourges, Chartres, Poitiers, Tours or support for the creation of contemporary glass.
Some key figures
Of the more than 400 workshops of glass painters in France, only about fifteen are qualified to intervene on the old stained glass windows. These workshops contribute to the conservation and restoration of stained glass windows protected as historical monuments.
Major conservation and restoration operations were carried out in the cathedrals of Auch, Chartres, Cahors, Lyon and Strasbourg. The stained glass windows deposited in April-May 2019 at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris are being restored in 2022.
Investment in the field of stained glass remains a priority in order to save from physico-chemical alterations or neglect a heritage unique in the world by its size and variety. The participation of the State, the amount of which varies according to the status of the building, leads to the realization of many operations of maintenance as well as restoration or creation of stained glass windows, in partnership with the municipalities owners, the departmental and regional councils.
Concerned with the safeguarding and enhancement of a specific intangible heritage, the public policy of preserving stained glass thus contributes to the preservation of a centuries-old profession, that of glass painter, and promotes the development of that, more recent, restorer specialized in the intervention on the old windows.