The Annunciation, The Visitation, and The Nativity, 1863. Stained-glass window for the church of St. Columbia, Topcliffe. The left window was designed by Edward Burne-Jones and the other two by Michael Halliday. Image courtesy of Alastair Carew-Cox, Angels & Icons.
The designs by Halliday hold up surprisingly well when compared to that of Burne-Jones and produce a balanced composition helped by Lavers & Barraud giving the windows similar floral backgrounds carried across all three windows. As Bill Waters has noted: “Halliday’s windows have a freedom that came from his independence of the usual background training, like Jones he brought into the craft a mind uninhibited by the weight of tradition. But it came at a price. In 1865 he contributed a window on the south side of the main hall in the Guildhall, London, which the critic of The Ecclesiologist thought grotesque and childish.” (Angels & Icons, 140). — Dennis T. Lanigan
Bibliography
Waters, William and Alastair Carew-Cox. Angels & Icons. Pre-Raphaelite Stained Glass 1850-1870. Abbots Morton: Seraphim Press, 2012.
Last modified 21 February 2022