Stained glass, or painted glass as it is most accurately called, was one of the most important art forms in Europe in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.  Windows filled with painted glass provided light and color in cathedrals and churches, and served as important teaching devices, presenting stories from the Bible, the lives of saints, and events in the history of the Church in a graphic way to a largely illiterate population.

The Mocking of Christ almost certainly comes from a series of windows relating the story of the passion of Christ from his entry into Jerusalem to the Resurrection.  It recounts the dramatic moment when Christ was handed over by Pilate to soldiers who placed on him a robe and crown of thorns, and mockingly proclaimed, "Hail, King of the Jews."  The drama of this event is heightened by the contrast between the cruel, grotesque faces of the soldiers and the idealized, almost serene pathos of the face of Christ, as well as by the use of intense, rich colors.

This panel was made in Germany about 1500, probably for a church in or near Cologne.  The subject, spiritual intensity, facial types, and finely detailed drawing of the panel associate it closely with paintings, drawings, and prints of such late-15th- and early 16th-century German masters as Martin Schongauer, Matthias Grünewald, and Albrecht Dürer.

When many churches along the Franco-German border were secularized during the French Revolution, the panel was removed from its original location and taken to England.  There it was purchased by Sir William Jernigan, a Roman Catholic, and incorporated along with eighty other panels of early glass into the windows of his private neo-Gothic chapel at Costessey Hall in Norfolk.  When the chapel and hall were demolished in the early 20th century, the glass was removed and sold, subsequently finding its way into many public and private collections.

This panel was made in Germany about 1500, probably for a chuch in or near Cologne. 

In the 15th century, the Venetians developed cristallo, a fine, delicate, colorless glass that could be manipulated while hot into a wide variety of shapes, and was sometimes decorated with gilding, enamels, and colored glass.  Venetian glass was considered the finest in Europe and was much sought throughout the continent by the well-to-do as a luxury commodity.  This wine glass, with a cup-shaped bowl supported on a hollow knopped inverted baluster stem above a wide conical foot, is decorated using the technique known as vetro a ritorti, in which clear cristallo is embedded with thin opaque white canes arranged in a variety of elaborate interlacing patterns to provide a fanciful, dazzling effect. 

Objects made of the fine 'crystalline'  glass developed in Venice in  the mid-15th century were luxury items sought throughout Europe for their elegance and delicacy. Soon, Venetian glassworkers settled in other areas, produced glass in the Venetian manner, and taught their craft to native craftsmen.  In the 1530s 'crystalline' glass first came into production in the Netherlands, which soon became a major glassmaking center, producing glass that rivaled in design and craftsmanship that produced in Venice.

This delicate wine glass, or goblet, was probably made in the Southern Netherlands at the end of the 16th or beginning of the 17th centuries, just as the production of glass in that area reached its height.  Its clear, rib-molded conical bowl with flaring rim rests on a slim, multi-knopped stem applied with scrolled 'wings' that resemble sea-horses and are composed of both clear and light blue glass. The result is a complex, exotic elegance characteristic of Northern European mannerism that reached its apex in the decorative art sat this time.

Much glass made in England was exported to Holland and there engraved and sold.  This  tall, slim wine glass with inverted conical bowl supported on a knopped baluster stem was made in Newcastle, an important center of English glassmaking in the middle of the 18th century.  It was then wheel-engraved by Jacob Sang, one of the most distinguished Dutch glass engravers of the period, with the Garter arms of William V (1748-1806), Prince of Orange and Stadtholder of Holland, who was invested in the English Order of the Garter in 1752.

In the early 19th century, glasssware made in England and Ireland was considered the finest in the world.  This  bowl on stand is a impressive example of the work done in this period.  Almost 8 inches in height, the elaborate overall diamond-shaped wheel-cut decoration and fold-over rim are typical of work done in Ireland at the time, and the form is almost identical to that of a bowl on stand belonging to a famous service made  in 1830 for the Duke of Wellington, the distinguished soldier and statesman.