Stained Glass Window, Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, 434 S State St, University of Michigan, November 27, 2020

Tiffany Window

"The Kelsey Library’s Tiffany window was a gift of brothers E. Crofton Fox (U-M student 1871–73) and Charles Fox (U-M class of 1875) of Grand Rapids in memory of their father, Reverend Charles Fox (1815–54), and two of their four brothers, William H. Fox (1850–87, U-M class of 1873) and George T. Fox (1848–77, U-M class of 1871)...

The window measures 8' 1" wide by 15' 10" tall and is surrounded by an oak frame. Unlike Tiffany’s better-known works, which depict figures or landscape scenes, the Fox memorial window features an abstract geometric design, common for Tiffany’s earliest works. Most of these early pieces were designed by Louis C. Tiffany himself, who, as demand for his windows increased in the 1890s, began to hire other artists to execute the designs.

The Fox memorial window utilizes many kinds of glass, including roundels and chunks or nuggets, as well as plated layers, to produce a range of colors from rich claret and deep sapphire to greens, golds, and lighter shades of pinks, yellows, and blues. The abstract design incorporates not only geometric forms but also floral and vegetable motifs, such as the green pods around the perimeter and the petal-like forms at the bottom, which embrace the panels naming the honorees. These forms, plus the medallion at the top with its floral images surrounded by roundels, hint at Tiffany’s coming mastery of landscape, figural, and ecclesiastical designs.

—excerpted from an article by Julie Truettner, the University’s preservationist and building historian, in the Kelsey Museum Newsletter, spring 2002."

https://lsa.umich.edu/kelsey/about-us/history/building/tiffany-window.html