Featured Window

Our Lady of Grace, Dearborn Heights, Michigan

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MSGC : Collections : Window

Window

Building Name: Madonna University Welcome Center

City: Livonia

Window Shape: 3 (arched)

Subject/Title of Window: St. Clare of Assisi

Brief Description of Subject: The sides and canopy provide an architectural setting for this window. Of the six portraiture windows covered, three use the same architecture as this window and three use a different one.
 
St. Clare (1194 - 1253) against her father's wishes, in 1211 she joined St Francis at the Portiuncula (Our Lady of the Angels) where Francis gave her a gray habit. She was then sent to a Benedictine monastery in Bastia and later to the monastery in San Damiano. In 1212 Clare and Francis formed what originally was called the "Cloistered Poor Ladies of St. Damiano," now popularly called the "Poor Clares."
 
St. Clare's portrait, seen here, is based on a mosaic done by Tiberio d'Assisi in 1506 for the Benedictine monastery in Bastia. The mosaic pictured the Virgin Mary and Child, St. Ansanus, St. Sebastian, St. Clare, and St. Francis. At some point the mosaic was removed and the five saints were separated. In the 19th Century the St. Clare part was transferred to canvas. The one pictured here is based on a 1897 colored lithograph from that canvas by Luigi Salomone of Rome. The image has her costumed in a gray habit, holding a stem of a lily (chastity) and a book (she wrote the rule book for the Poor Clares). The only additions by the artist for this window are the cincture with three knots (vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience), and the background that features a field of periwinkles (purity or unconditional love --- both apply to her), and the monastery at San Damiano.
 
At this time it is not known what the predellas of the windows from the closed church looked like. The one used here is viewed separately from the window and contains the inscription.

Inscriptions: SAINT CLARE OF ASSISI


Height: Lancet with predella: Height: 8 ft --- Lancet without predella 9 ft.

Width: Width 3 ft. Predella: Width: 29 in (is shorter as in the closed church windows the predella was designed to allow air circulation.)

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All images in the Index are either born-digital photographs of windows or buildings or are scans of slides, prints, or other published sources. These images have been provided by volunteers and the quality of the material varies widely.

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