Window 18: Holy Matrimony.
Window 18: Holy Matrimony
The eighteenth window in the Creation and the New Creation series of windows at the church of Saints Leonard and Fergus, Dundee.
Window 18: Holy Matrimony and the next, Window 19: Adam & Eve, form a pair in that they are both concerned with the union of a woman and a man. They bring together two of the three main themes that circle these windows, The Days of Creation and The Seven Sacraments (forthcoming). While in some ways you might expect the Adam & Eve window, which belongs to the Days of Creation theme, to come before the Matrimony window, which belongs to the Sacraments theme, there is a good reason why Matrimony appears first.
As you will see in the next window, Adam & Eve, who were created on the sixth day, are portrayed in the garden of Eden in a state of original grace. This was before the well-known story of the Fall from grace when the serpent arrived on the scene and Adam & Eve were banished from the garden. The Matrimony window is positioned before Adam & Eve to emphasise the sanctity and holiness of marriage as a sacrament, by bringing it, too, into a state of grace before the Fall.
A glass bridal bouquet.
Holy Matrimony, or simply Matrimony, is a 'covenant by which a man and woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life …' In the Catholic church, it is regarded as one of the seven sacraments, one of the visible signs of an invisible grace.
The focal point of this window is an exquisite glass bridal bouquet. Dad asked Noel Sinclair, a fellow stained-glass artist, to design the bouquet on paper. As we have already seen, she painted many flowers using enamels in the Spring series of windows, starting with Window 8: The Woman at the Well. Working from her design, Dad selected flashed seedy green on white glass to symbolise purity. By applying soft and free acid-etching and delicate silver stain detail to the glass, he gives it a shimmering and lively quality. Tied
A pair of gold wedding rings, wrapped around a Celtic patterned Cross.
together with a golden bow, this beautiful and fragile bouquet communicates the need to handle marriage with care; it is not just the wedding day that is important, marriage is for life.
Peacock butterfly representing the bridegroom.
Painted Lady butterfly representing the bride.
In the traditional Catholic rite of Holy Matrimony, the bridegroom says to the bride, 'With this ring I thee wed; this gold and silver I thee give; with my body I thee worship; and with all my worldly goods I thee endow'.
A pair of wedding rings, two gold bands, are positioned above the bridal bouquet. They are wrapped around a cross decorated in a fairly straightforward Celtic design, acid etched into the glass. Together, the rings and the cross form a traditional symbol of the binding of two people, their marriage and the Church. The gold and silver is symbolised by subtle silver and gold interlocking circles woven through the Celtic latticework background
pattern of the window, most prominent in the transom. The subtlety is easily missed but can be seen more clearly if you squint!
The two partners in the marriage are also represented by two butterflies. The woman is represented by a Painted Lady in the lower part of the window and the man by a Peacock butterfly towards the top.
A number of honeybees are dotted around the window, by now a familiar feature of the windows. As previously mentioned, most of these were painted by Dad’s youngest daughter Ester, my sister, when she was 9 years old. In addition, a peculiar little bird painted by Ester is included in the bottom right-hand corner, offering a comedic touch to the window. More of her uninhibited creativity features in the next window in the series, Window 19: Adam & Eve, coming up next.
The transom, showing the gold and silver interlocking circles.