Border section from a Saint Benedict window

This panel was part of a border that surrounded a stained-glass window dedicated to the life of Saint Benedict in the choir or crypt of the abbey church of Saint-Denis. It is designed as a series of stems or branches that curve to create a series of inverted heart-shaped enclosures with pale blue grounds set against a cool green ground. Bouquets of leaves sprout from clasps within the compartments. The tonalities in this border are limited and subdued, and the design is fluid and continuous, forming a striking contrast with the precise, static, detailed and multicolored panels from the border of the Moses window at Saint-Denis that are also at Glencairn (03.SG.181–182). (Michael Cothren, Consultative Curator of Medieval Stained Glass)

Sources:
- Jane Hayward and Walter Cahn, et al., _Radiance and Reflection: Medieval Art from the Raymond Pitcairn Collection_, exhibition catalog, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982, pp. 88–89.
- Sumner McKnight Crosby and Jane Hayward, et al, _The Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis in the Time of Abbot Suger (1122–1151)_, exhibition catalog, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1981, p. 90–91.
- Louis Grodecki, _Les vitraux de Saint-Denis: Étude sur le vitrail au XIIe siècle_ (Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi: France, Études I), Paris, 1976, pp. 127, 130.