Auld West Kirk, Greenock, Inverclyde
Address
Auld West Kirk, Esplanade, Greenock PA16 7SDRecommended by
Highlight
'Hope' windowArtist, maker and date
Designed by Daniel Cottier and made by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co, 1864Reason for highlighting
No one who works with stained glass in and around Glasgow cannot but fall in love with the sheer beauty of Daniel Cottier’s stained glass. He was directly influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, whose windows by Burne-Jones (1867-74) and Rossetti (1868), and made by Morris, can be seen inside this lovely wee church on the banks of the river Clyde.
Cottier built a worldwide reputation, but I’ve selected this particular window, simply because it brings him back home, to his family, and the Clyde. It’s a very small, very personal tribute to his grandfather, and exquisitely beautiful.
Artist/maker notes
Daniel Cottier (1838-1891) had a varied training, including it is thought, some time in London, before joining Field & Allen in Edinburgh in 1862. There he built up the stained glass business as foreman designer, before opening his own studio in 1864-65.
Cottier was prolific in many fields of the arts including furniture design and art dealing, along with stained glass. He spread his wings beyond Scotland opening offices in London, New York and Sydney, and is credited with introducing the Aesthetic Movement to America and Australia.
Sources:
200 Scottish stained glass artists by Rona H Moody in The Journal of Stained Glass Scotland Issue Volume XXX (2006)
Daniel Cottier: Designer, Decorator, Dealer by Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, Max Donnelly, Andrew Montana, Suzanne Veldink (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2021)
Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. (1861-75) or ‘the Firm’, as it was colloquially referred to, was founded in 1861 by William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown, Philip Webb, Peter Paul Marshall and Charles J Faulkner. The Firm started out with no lack of confidence. As Rossetti wrote in January 1862, ‘Our stained glass…may challenge any other firm to approach it’. It was succeeded in 1875 by Morris & Co.
Sources:
For a brief overview of the two companies see Morris & Co on Wikipedia
The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination by Fiona McCarthy (Faber & Faber, 2011)
William Morris: A Life for Our Time by Fiona MacCarthy (Faber & Faber, 1994)
Burne-Jones Special Issue, The Journal of Stained Glass, Vol. XXXV, 2011
Damozels & Deities Pre-Raphaelite Stained Glass 1870-1898 by William Waters and Alastair Carew-Cox (Seraphim Press Ltd, 2017)
Other comments
The Auld West Kirk is one of three churches that amalgamated in 2011 to form Lyle Kirk. On Google Maps it is marked as Lyle Kirk (Esplanade Campus)
There are other interesting stained glass windows to be seen here and further details, including more on the history of the Auld Kirk can be found at Lyle Kirk – Old West Kirk