Monday 13 July 2009

Window in a Listed Building,7 - Central Panel

I began the dis-assembly of the middle panel last week. This photo shows the early stages.



The outer borders on the left have been taken away and prepared for cleaning. This panel was in the best state of the four in terms of amount of obvious breakages. However as dis=-assembly progressed, more broken pieces were revealed. The clear replacements added in the past are very obvious now that the panel is on the bench.



This photo shows the pieces on the left after cleaning with some of the gaps marked and the areas of clear replacements.




This photo shows the panel completely taken apart and cleaned.


This shows the variations in colour on borders, which ranges from deep flashed red to a brownish purple. Many of these narrow pieces are broken and will need to be replaced.
This also shows some of the mild variation in colour of the grisaille that forms the main areas of the whole window.
Comparison of the painted head in its cleaned state with the leaded panel shows a major variation. In the original state it appears that the head is in two pieces - the line running across the neck of the figure. When taken apart, this is shown to be a line overlayed across a break. Also in the grissaile surrounding the head there are lines of overlayed lead. The purpose of these is not apparent to me, as the glass was sound underneath. Although one piece has a couple of breaks near the cloak.
These pieces will be glued with Araldite 20/20. This is a clear resin that does not discolour in sunlight and is impervious to moisture.
The previous entries in this series can be found at:http://verrier-glass.blogspot.com/2009/06/window-in-listed-building-1.html







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