GOTHIC GLASS PAINTER, German
(active 1440s in Rhineland)

Window with Saints

1440-47
Pot-metal and white glass with vitrous paint, 377 x 73 cm (each panel)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

These three windows of stained glass are from the Carmelite church of Saint Severinus at Boppard-on-Rhine in Germany. They are part of an ensemble of six that were originally installed three over three to form a single tall window. After Napoleon invaded the Rhineland and secularised its monasteries, the stained glass of the church was removed and dispersed.

The three panels represent St Catherine of Alexandria with the wheel and sword of her martyrdom, St Dorothea receiving a basket of roses from the Christ Child (in the centre), and St Barbara holding the tower in which she was imprisoned.