January 15, 2008
Googlebooking Stained Glass
Some mention on the Stained Glass H-net Forum recently of an old stained glass book being available on the web. So, being a curious fellow, I tried out a search at Google Books. It has a clunky and slow interface, but if you search a bit there are some interesting finds, especially old obscure books that are available in their entirety since the books are long in the public domain.
Searching for 'stained glass', I did find it -
Decorative Painters' and Glazier's Guide by Nathaniel Whittock, this edition with a publication date of 1828. This book is interesting as an early stained glass "How-to" book, especially in that this was well before the age of the stained glass supplier, so there are recipes in here for making the glass (though not descriptions of HOW to make the glass), as well as recipes for making your own paint and silver stain. Mostly the book concerns itself with methods of painting and staining on clear crown glass. Pages 204-304 are the ones related to stained glass.
This plate of illustrations comes just before page 243.
It is one of only a few hand-colored plates in the book.
This page contains paint formulas.
If you are truly interested in giving this a serious read-through, then I would recommend downloading the pdf and printing out the stained glass section.
Another full book about stained glass is this one published in 1922 - Stained Glass, by Alfred Werck. You can tell he's a little bristly, and opinionated by the subtitle -
"A Handbook on the Art of Stained and Painted Qlass, Its Origin and Development From the Time of Charlemagne to Its Decadence (850-1650)". Personally, I like decadent stained glass....