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Newsletter 10 - June-July
Published about 1 month ago • 7 min read
NewsLETTER 10
June-July 2026
Dear supporter of Ars Lucis,
We are not sitting idle during these summer months. Behind the scenes, we continue working on the registration – both analog and digital – of the collection (which keeps growing!). But we are also hatching new initiatives and activities, the next of which we are announcing in this Newsletter. Indeed, we are going on a trip again! More specifically, we are heading to Liège this autumn. We bet this city will surprise you too with its many stained-glass windows. Read on quickly and do not wait too long to sign up!
We also take this opportunity to thank our ‘very first’ Friends, as almost all of them have renewed their membership by now. This not only makes us very happy, but these revenues are also important to us, as they support our operations and thus contribute to the promotion and research of stained-glass art.
Unsure about the status of your membership? No worries; as soon as it is about to expire, we will send an email asking you to renew it. If you still have questions, do not hesitate to ask us.
Thank you very much for your continued interest and support!
Warm regards,
Joost and Liesbeth
News about Ars Lucis
Ars Lucis continues to support the international project regarding the storage and registration of cartoons (see also our newsletter 7). During the recent Corpus Vitrearum congress in Krakow, Joost issued a call for this working group, which immediately attracted new interested parties. Would you also like to join the next online meeting on September 8 at 3:30 PM (CET)? Please feel free to contact us.
Joost's doctoral thesis, published in 2009 under the title The Production of Stained Glass in the County of Flanders and the Duchy of Brabant from the XVth to the XVIIIth Centuries: Materials and Techniques, remains a standard work. It has been out of print for quite some time now. However, Friends of Ars Lucis can obtain a PDF copy on request.
New activities
17/10/2026: Stained-glass walk Liège
On Saturday 17 October Ars Lucis takes you to Liège to explore this city from a very specific perspective. After all, there is a great deal of beauty to discover when it comes to stained glass!
Naturally, we cannot ignore the phenomenal 16th-century stained-glass windows that adorn the churches of Liège. We will also visit the temporary exhibition on Art Nouveau stained-glass windows at the Grand Curtius museum. And in between, we will of course keep an eye out for other special applications of architectural glass that we come across during our walk.
We will dedicate a full day to all of this, which includes a shared lunch. At each location, we will be given an explanation by a guide. The tours are conducted in French, but the guide will be mindful of non-French speakers.
Price: € 50/90 for Friends (duo). Others pay € 65 per person. This price includes: access to all locations, guide, and lunch (excl. drinks).
The full schedule of our activities is available on our website.
Past activities
Our talk on 4 June about stained-glass windows in Belgian castles, organised by MarnixRing ‘Land van Gaasbeek’ and Gaasbeek Castle, was well attended and greatly appreciated. Liesbeth took the lead with a comprehensive overview of historical glazing in castles in our country. Special attention was, of course, paid to Gaasbeek Castle, after which Joost delved deeper into the conservation and restoration history of some of Belgium’s oldest stained-glass windows in castles.
The evening concluded with a drink in the bar at Gaasbeek Castle.
In early July, Joost traveled to Poland to attend the 32nd International Colloquium of the Corpus Vitrearum. There, he gave a lecture on the study and inventory of small-sized stained glass, and naturally, he was also able to learn from the many other speakers. As is customary, the congress attendees were also treated to visits and excursions. However, Joost considered the stained-glass windows by Stanislaw Wyspianski in the Franciscan Church in Krakow to be one of the highlights. Anyone wishing to know more about these stained-glass windows and the congress can read Joost's report here.
Acquisitions
The Caen Collection has been enriched with the following items:
Glass
Saint John the Evangelist
c. 1550, Southern Netherlands
Nativity
c. 1525, Southern Netherlands or Northern France
Allegory of the Fine Arts
signed André Van Damme, 1915
Addendum to newsletter 9
In our previous newsletter, we reported the acquisition of the stained-glass window below, depicting a Xaverian Brother.
In the meantime, we have discovered that it shows Brother Paul Scanlan (1864-1950), who was Superior General of the Xaverians from 1928 to 1935.
The resemblance is striking!
Library
H.C. VERKRUYSEN & A. VAN DER BOOM: Wendingen. Joep Nicolas glazenier. (12th series, nr. 3, 1931)
J. DUMOLYN & N. GEIRNAERT (ed.): Een hemels Jeruzalem in Brugge, Brugge, 2024. A beautiful and richly illustrated book which devotes a great deal of attention to the 16th-century stained-glass windows in the Jerusalem chapel.
Archivalia
19th-century vidimus for a monumental stained-glass window
showing the Baptism of Christ at the top and St John the Baptist and St Livinus at the bottom
We are still trying to identify the church where this stained-glass window was installed.
Do you have stained-glass windows, books, documentation or other material that you would like to offer to Ars Lucis? Please feel free to contact us.
External news
On 13 June, Stephen Koob (b. 1951), former chief conservator of the Corning Museum of Glass (New York), passed away. At numerous international conferences, Joost had the pleasure of speaking with this friendly colleague about the conservation and restoration of glass art. Stephen was an exceptionally dedicated professional who combined outstanding specialist knowledge and excellent manual skills with scientific research and relevant experiments. In this way, he made a significant contribution to our discipline, not least with regard to the use of, for example, Paraloid B72 and other adhesives in glass conservation.
His career, his publications and his many other contributions to the field will remain an example to all those active in glass restoration.
Since 2010, the City of Liège has mapped the stained-glass windows in more than 300 private homes and commercial premises. Among these are many Art Nouveau stained-glass windows that are well worth showcasing. This is being done at the Grand Curtius Museum, where the exhibition Les vitraux Liégeois de style Art Nouveau is running until 6 June 2027. (but you’re also welcome to join us on 17 October 😉 )
The organisation Verre&Histoire is preparing a symposium on the reuse and recycling of glass, from Antiquity to 1960. Abstracts can be submitted until 5 September. The symposium itself is scheduled to take place on 3-5 June 2027 in Orléans.
The Association Internationale pour l'histoire du Verre (AIHV) is also calling for abstracts to be submitted for its conference, which will take place in Marseille from 6 to 10 September 2027. The title of the conference is ‘Glass – along the shores and across the seas’ and the deadline for submissions is 31 August.
In 2027, there will be a follow-up to the conference ‘Many Antwerp Hands: Collaborations in Netherlandish Art, 1400–1750’, organised by the Rubenianum in 2018. The second part, ‘Many (more) Antwerp Hands’, will focus on collaborations in art disciplines other than painting and drawing. Stained-glass art, for example, will also be featured. The dates and venue are: 22–23 April 2027 at the Rubens House (Antwerp).
Failures are not necessarily worthless. They can teach us something or may even be desirable. On this theme, the University of Bern, in collaboration with Vitrocentre Romont, is organising a conference in Romont on 13-14 May 2027: ‘Beyond the Masterpiece: Embracing Failure in Ceramic and Glass Art’.
Do you have news that might interest our readers? Please contact Liesbeth.
Featured piece
Four designs for masterpieces,
c. 1700
It was a particularly pleasant surprise when we discovered these four pen drawings. They were loose in a bundle of designs by a Bruges glass painter. While this bundle was compiled in the 20th century, we date the drawings to around 1700. The drawings are actually designs for masterpieces. They served as models for the execution of a masterpiece panel in the guild to which glass painters and glaziers belonged. In Antwerp, for example, this was the St. Luke's Guild; in Mechelen, the Guild of Masons.
From ‘simple’ masterpieces...
From historical accounts, we know that the masterpieces were initially very elementary and merely consisted of creating a stained-glass panel with simple geometric patterns such as diamonds.
Later, the test was split into professional disciplines: the aspiring glazier had to make a stained-glass panel with a diced pattern; the glass painter produced a stained-glass panel with a coat of arms; and the lantern maker demonstrated his skill by making a stained-glass lantern.
Drawing of a diced pattern
Drawing of a lantern
...to tours de force
In the course of the 17th century, stained-glass windows increasingly became transparent paintings, and we see that the glass painters involved were keen to distinguish themselves from the glaziers. Presumably, this is the reason why the latter also showcased their own excellent skills more through true tours de force. Consequently, these geometric patterns feature virtually impossible-to-cut pieces of glass in the form of set squares and perforated pieces with insertions of other small glass pieces (often called the ‘ornament’). Central to each of the four drawings shown here is such an ornament. With this, the glaziers demonstrated not only their superiority in glass cutting, leading, and soldering but also their equality with the artistically oriented glass painters. (In his entire career, Joost succeeded in cutting a perforated piece himself only once)
The Museum of Our Lady of the Potterie in Bruges houses several examples of such particularly difficult-to-cut ‘ornaments’ featuring multi-perforated glass pieces. It is incredible that these have been preserved in such pristine condition.
Moreover, several fully executed masterpieces are also preserved in museums in Leuven, Bruges, and Leiden..
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