Featured Window

Our Lady of Grace, Dearborn Heights, Michigan

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MSGC : Collections : Window

Window

Building Name: St. Joseph Oratory, formerly St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church

Studio Name: Mayer (Franz) and Company

City: Detroit

Window Shape: 5 (gothic arched, 2 vertical sections)

Date of Window: 1873

Subject/Title of Window: St. Ambrose and St. Boniface

Brief Description of Subject: St. Ambrose and St. Boniface are shown to support program of papel infallability and orthodoxy. This window also might show politics of German unification.

St. Ambrose dressed as a bishop with mitre and crozier. A bee hive at his feet -- references a legend that as a youth a swarm of bees attacked him yet they were not able to sting him.

St. Boniface dressed as a bishop with mitre and crozier. He is holding a book with a sword piercing it alludes to the legend of his martyrdom that a pagan drove a sword through a Bible St. Boniface was holding thus killing him.

St. Ambrose brought St. Augustine into the Faith. St. Boniface is the Patron Saint of German speaking people.

The sanctuary windows are five in number, each 36 feet high. In each is to be a figure 6 feet in height, made in Munich, the rest being made by Chas. Freiderick of this city.
Western Home Journal of Feb 8, 1873. Interview of Father Friedland the Pastor on his soon to be completed Church.

At the liturgical east end of the Church, the chancel is enclosed with five tall, slender, stained glass windows, these are the most important cultural objects in the Church, internationally known for their position in the history of European and American stained glass. Beneath the figures of Christ and Peter in the central window is the signature of Mayer of Munich, the world famous glass makers. These windows, dating from 1873, are the oldest known Mayer glass in America. But the windows are not entirely by Mayer, only the figures with their pedestals and bases come from Munich. The geometric designs in red, yellow and blue above and below the figures were made by Friederichs & Staffin of Detroit. The design for that geometric pattern, a color rendering by architect Himpler, still survives. This is the earliest documented involvement of an American architect in the design of stained glass, and it must be assumed that Himpler was also in contact with Mayer, for the Mayer glass fits perfectly into the pattern Himpler designed.
--William M. Worden, a Detroit preservationist

Inscriptions:
Sanctus Ambrosius
Sanctus Bonifacii


Condition of Window: Fair, releading needed

Height: 36'

Width: 54"

Type of Glass and Technique: Antique or Cathedral Glass, Enamel Paint, Lead Came, Vitreous Paint, Silver Stain

The MSGC is a constantly evolving database. Not all the data that has been collected by volunteers has been sorted and entered. Not every building has been completely documented.

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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