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Replacement of broken glass and recovery of old pieces…

Another look at the cathedral’s stained-glass windows: replacing broken glass and recovering old pieces. Like an investigator…

Noah window. This window is the first in the cathedral’s north aisle, on the left as you enter, near the access stand to the towers © NDC-fonds Gaud
Panel depicting the devastation wrought by the flood. Several drowned people appear in the waves, their eyes closed, as well as a dead horse. A carrion bird lands on one of the corpses. The scene is evocative of the end of a world, swept away by cataclysm © NDC-fonds Gaud
On closer inspection, the bird has been “repaired”, with the use of identically colored pieces, violet-parma, which, seen from the ground, give a fairly good illusion © NDC-fonds Gaud

Doubtless the panel received a rather violent blow, since more than half the feathers had to be replaced in the end, while no breakage lead was used – with which broken glass could have been ‘glued’ back together. All this might suggest a real ‘hole’, with parts missing after falling to the ground.

Four pieces, of ‘foreign’ origin, were re-used for this purpose. How were they obtained? No doubt from similar accidents. In this case, the only criterion is color.

The first piece seems to have come from a flotsam figuration, such as can be found elsewhere in this same stained-glass window © NDC-fonds Gaud
The second could be the edge of a merchant’s stall, similar to the one featured in the scene of donors (merciers-apothicaires) at the bottom of the St. Nicholas stained-glass window (lower north side) © NDC-fonds Gaud
The third is clearly a fragment of a garment, with the lines describing the folds of the drapery. Another scene from the St. Nicholas window (education of the saint) provides an excellent demonstration of this © NDC-fonds Gaud
The fourth scene probably belonged to an “orfroi”-type decoration, of which we have found no similar example in the cathedral’s surviving stained-glass windows. In the same stained-glass window, the elephant wears a ‘pearl’ decoration, with the same coloring – which, incidentally, is far removed from that of the pachyderms © NDC-fonds Gaud