The Visitation

This panel—which was once part of an Infancy of Christ window—portrays the joyous embrace of Saint Elizabeth (on the right, pregnant with Saint John the Baptist) and her cousin the Virgin Mary (on the left, pregnant with Jesus) at the beginning of a visit described in the Gospel of Luke (1:39–56). The full-color lobed panel containing this encounter is set within a field of brilliant colorless glass painted with foliate decoration, and a bold strip of foliate ornament runs up one side of the panel to form part of the window’s border. Combinations of full-color and colorless “grisaille” glass became increasingly fashionable in French windows during the second half of the thirteenth century, and this is a particularly stunning example. (Michael Cothren, Consultative Curator of Medieval Stained Glass)

Sources:
- Michael Cothren, “A ‘Visitation’ from Saint-Radegonde,” _Glencairn Museum News_, Number 10, 2017. (See External Link.)
- Meredith Parsons Lillich, “Stained Glass from Western France (1250–1325) in American Collections.” _Journal of Glass Studies_ 25 (1983): 121–128. (The Visitation is discussed on pp. 123–125)
- Jane Hayward and Walter Cahn, et al., _Radiance and Reflection: Medieval Art from the Raymond Pitcairn Collection,_ exhibition catalogue, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982, pp. 221–23.