Stained Glass of Percy Bacon & Brothers

Percy Bacon & Brother, St Martin's North Nibley.
Visitation, Annunciation & Presentation

SA1: Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth.

SA1: Annunciation to the virgin.

SA1: Presentation in the temple.

SA1: Angel with thurible in top light (l).

SA1: Angel with thurible in top light (r).

South Aisle 1: Visitation, Annunciation and Presentation, 1897.

Posted 24 October 2022.

There is a single Percy Bacon window in the south aisle of St Martin's installed in June 1897.¹ The work is typical of his work in the early years, with vast elaborate canopies and pedestals in white glass and yellow stain (compare his work of 1893 in North Creake, Norfolk). The windows are full of detail; At the top of the canopies in the outer lights sit diminutive angels swinging thuribles, and in the backgrounds of the figurative panels there are fairy tale castles. The lights represent (l-r), The Visitation of The Blessed Virgin Mary, The Annunciation to Mary, and Presentation in the temple. The visitation scene is unusual. In most classical art depicting the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth from which Percy Bacon likely took most of his inspiration, Elizabeth's husband, Zachariah is shown as an onlooker rather than a participant. In Bacon's interpretation of the meeting the figure of Zachariah wears a modern bishop's mitre and is taking an active part in the scene by raising his hand in blessing. Simeon in the presentation scene wears an early form of mitre. Bacon may have been drawng upon Frederico Zuccaro's Presentation scene of 1568. The presentation of Jesus to the high priest at the Temple. Engraving by C. Cort, 1568, after F. Zuccaro. Public domain image.

In the scrolls are appropriate words to accompany the figurative panel above: truncated words from the Magnificat; "Beatam me dicent omnes" (Everyone will say I am Blessed), from John 1:14; "Verbum caro factum est" (The Word Was Made Flesh), and from one of the three antiphons traditionally sung at Candlemas (Feb 2) or the Feast of the Presentation,"Lumen ad revelationem gentium".

The window is a memorial to the late vicar of North Nibley, the Rev. Henry Williams.

1. Report in Stroud News and Gloucestershire Advertiser - Friday 02 July 1897, p2.
2. See also Morning Post Tuesday 31 August 1879.