Stained Glass Windows Exhibit Coming to Museum of Russian Icons

Friday, June 17, 2016

GoLocalWorcester Lifestyle Team

The Museum of Russian Icons will present in Company with Angels: Seven Rediscovered Tiffany Windows, an exhibition of stained glass angels created in 1902 for a Swedenborgian Church in Cincinnati. The windows were displaced when the church was razed in 1964 for highway construction.

All seven windows will be on view at Museum of Russian Icons from July 14 to October 16, 2016 as well as other objects created by Tiffany and several Icons from the Museum's collection that relate to the windows.

There will be an opening reception for the exhibit on July 14 and it will include a talk by Rev. Susannah Curry, M.DIV, BCC. Currie spent 9 years as pastor at the Swedenborgian Church at Temenos, and as Director of the Temenos Retreat Center in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

The Windows

The eight foot tall windows were created and rained for nearly 40 years in parishioners garages and basements. They were brought from Ohio to Pennsylvania in a U-Haul truck to a barn on a Swdenborgian church property in 1991.

A new minister opened the mysterious unmarked crates in 2001 and was stunned at what she saw and called stained glass expert Arthur Femenella. He recognized Tiffany's opalescent glass, design, and technique, despite decades of grime.

Church archives confirmed his attribution and restoration of the angel windows began in 2004. A cleaning of the final window revealed Tiffany's signature.