Glass is one of the most durable, yet fragile building materials. It does not offer detailed advice on specific work treatments. It addresses common causes of deterioration and presents repair, restoration, and protection options. It also surveys basic preservation and documentation issues facing owners of buildings with leaded glass. This Brief gives a short history of stained and leaded glass in America. A number of notable churches, large mansions, civic buildings, and other prominent buildings boast windows or ceilings by LaFarge, Tiffany, Connick, or one of many other, lesser-known, American masters, but stained or leaded glass also appears as a prominent feature in great numbers of modest houses built between the Civil War and the Great Depression.įigure 2. It appears in all building types and architectural styles-embellishing the light in a great cathedral, or adding a touch of decoration to the smallest rowhouse or bungalow. It appears in windows, doors, ceilings, fanlights, sidelights, light fixtures, and other glazed features found in historic buildings (Figure 2). Stained and leaded glass can be found throughout America in a dazzling variety of colors, patterns, and textures (Figure 1). Of all the decorative effects possible with glass, however, none is more impressive than “stained glass.” Since the days of ancient Rome, stained glass in windows and other building elements has shaped and colored light in infinite ways.

Once cooled, it can be polished, beveled, chipped, etched, engraved, or painted. In its molten state, it can be spun, blown, rolled, cast in any shape, and given any color. Because the construction, protection, and repair techniques of leaded glass units are similar, whether the glass itself is colored or clear, “stained glass” and “leaded glass” are used interchangeably throughout the text. “Leaded glass” refers generically to all glass assemblies held in place by lead, copper, or zinc cames.

“Stained glass” can mean colored, painted or enameled glass, or glass tinted with true glass “stains.” In this Brief the term refers to both colored and painted glass.

This door and transom suggest the richness of 19th century leaded glass.

Religious stained glass design