St Michael Overcoming the Devil with Angels

  St Michael Overcoming the Devil with Angels

Photo © Martin Crampin, Imaging the Bible in Wales

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1921
Three-light window.

technique: stained glass

firm/studio: Morris & Co.
designer: Edward Coley Burne-Jones
designer: John Henry Dearle

Church of St Cybi, Holyhead, Anglesey

Given in memory of Harry Adeane, Captain in the Coldstream Guards, who died at the first Battle of Ypres, 1 November 1914.

The composition of Michael here overcoming Satan is clearly inspired by the work of Guido Reni (1575-1642) painted in 1636 for Cardinal Francesco Barberini, in the church of Sta Maria della Concezione, Rome. (This is the painting in which Satan has the unmistakeable features of Pope Innocent X, compare with the portrait by Velasquez.) This was a popular work in the late nineteenth century (see the copy in a private collection from Carmarthenshire and the banner in St Michael's, Abertillery). Given the roots of William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones in the Pre-Raphaelite Movement, it is somewhat ironic to find that the inspiration for this design comes from a seventeenth-century painting. However the window is more the work of the designer Henry Dearle, who cartooned the figure of St Michael, while cartoons of figures by Burne-Jones were reused in the outer lights.



 

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Further reading

A. Charles Sewter, The Stained Glass of William Morris and his Circle: A Catalogue (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1975), p. 96.

References

Martin Crampin, Stained Glass from Welsh Churches (Talybont: Y Lolfa, 2014), p. 196.


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  St Michael Overcoming the Devil with Angels

Photo © Martin Crampin, Imaging the Bible in Wales


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