From Paper to Glass. Prints and Stained Glass Roundels in the 16th Century Low Countries

Absolute technical revolution, printmaking played a major role in the circulation of images and motifs throughout Renaissance Europe. While its interrelationship with painting is relatively well known, its links with the art of stained glass roundel, which flourished between the 15th and 17th centuries, remain for their part little studied. Yet, it appears that glass painters found in prints a formidable repertoire of models that they willingly transferred to glass, thus contributing to their wider diffusion. Consequently, prints constitute a valuable methodological tool for the art historian as well, especially when it comes to dating these glass panels. This paper aims to highlight the ever-increasing place of engravings in the creative genesis of glass painters during the 16th century and to question the practical modalities of their transfer to glass. It also aims to show how some engraved compositions, such as those executed after Maarten van Heemskerck’s designs, enjoyed exceptional popularity among glassmakers, sometimes for several decades. By doing so, new perspectives on the interrelationship between graphic art and painting on glass will be opened