Saint Cornelius and the Angel

The subjects of these two panels are St. Cornelius, on the right, and an Angel, on the left. St. Cornelius was an early Christian Pope who held the position for only two years in about 250 AD. He died after torture and was martyred by beheading in 253. In the Tiffany window Cornelius is imagined as the young Roman aristocrat that he was before he became Pope. The windows were made in memoriam to Henry S. Grove, a young Philadelphia banker and leading member of St. Peter’s congregation. Like Cornelius, Grove died before his time - of pneumonia - at the age of 30. Inscribed on the windows is “Thy Prayers and Thine Alms are Come up for a Memorial Before God.” The windows were designed by Tiffany Studios, which were founded by famed stained glass artist Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933). The revolutionary technique of Tiffany stained glass is what gives these windows their beauty. The artist pioneered the use of opalescent glass, internally colored with varied shades of the same or different colors, which enabled artists to substitute the tone, texture and color inherent in glass itself for the pictorial details that previously had been painted on glass. Also used to create the windows was the layering of planes of glass to attain depth of color and three-dimensional effects.