 he stained glass collection at Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church is an important ensemble of American Opalescent Stained Glass. The artists and fabricators that were commissioned to create this cycle of glass are among the best of their time. Many of the artists represented at Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church are uniquely linked within a circle of New York designers enraptured by this uniquely developing style of stained glass.
Tiffany Studios were the initial company hired to begin the cycle. The Brooklyn Eagle News Paper considered the installation of the first window to be important and continued to cover each installation as it occurred between 1895 and 1913. The articles listed donors, fabricators, designers and memorials. In some cases there was also information on the glass and a critique of the window itself.
The first four large windows were designed and fabricated by Tiffany Studio. Each window was made to fit into a very elaborate metal skeleton of rebar, vertical fins and ventilators. The stained glass sections were stacked, one upon another. These two techniques were developed to accommodate this uniquely three-dimensional transparent, layered wall of glass. Later this system of stacked panels was abandoned because of its complexity.
Arnold and Locke were commissioned to fabricate the fourth window. They were operating a business on Fulton Street in Brooklyn.
The next three windows were designed and fabricated by Tiffany Studio and they represented a sizable commission during the first two years of the stained glass program. The last large window by Tiffany was “Christ Teaching in the Temple.” The designer of this window has not been identified, but I think that it may have been the Benjamin Sellers, who was to become one of the main stained glass designers at Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church.
Very little is known about Mr. Sellers. He is listed as a designer for Tiffany Studio and he obviously left Tiffany to establish a studio around the time he received his commissions at Lafayette. The last upper window was made by Seller and bears a very strong resemblance to the previous window (Christ teaching in the Temple) attributed to Tiffany.
The lower aisle windows are all wonderful examples of opalescent stained glass. The designers and fabricators are all fairly well known (with the exception of Sellers) and they all have close ties to Tiffany and with the New York Decorative Glass Company.
The New York Decorative Glass Company fabricated windows for Maitland Armstrong, John Lafarge, Mary Tillinghast, Joseph Lauber and Frederick Wilson.
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