Norfolk: Blickling Hall, Blickling Hall

The hall was rebuilt by Sir Henry Hobart between 1618 and 1629 to a design by Robert Lyminge and retained parts of the earlier Tudor house. Twelve panels of German and French glass are in the large four-light window above the main staircase, which was moved into the Great Hall in 1767. ¹ The glass was almost certainly all acquired from John Christopher Hampp in the early nineteenth century. Two panels appear in his 1804 sale catalogue and another six are from the same source. ² They were installed in their present location by 1820, but were removed in 1935 by the eleventh Marquis of Lothian and in 1953 were set up in the east window of Erpingham church. Unfortunately the damp environment there led to some severe deterioration in the condition of the glass and in 1994 the glass was removed, conserved and replaced in the Great Hall window at Blickling. ³ Replicas were painted and installed in the east window at Erpingham. Some of the panels have been extended to fit the openings and this work has been attributed to Yarington of Norwich. ⁴ The six upper panels are from the cloister of the former Premonstratensian Monastery of Steinfeld in the Eiffel region of Germany. Glass from all twenty-seven windows was brought to England by Hampp in 1802–4 and has found its way into many collections in England and the USA and two pieces have been returned to Steinfeld. The panels include two figures of St Quirinus, one of the Four Holy Marshals frequently depicted in Rhenish art of the late Middle Ages. Both these figures can be identified in Hampp’s 1804 sale catalogue in a list of panels depicting saints, many of whom were also seen at Steinfeld, an important indication that Hampp imported this glass. ⁵ In the bottom register the two outer panels are from a series of the early life of the Virgin, depicting Joachim sitting with St Anne waiting joyfully for the birth of the Virgin Mary, and the Presentation of the Virgin Mary in the Temple. A third panel from this series is in the Burrell Collection and shows the Virgin with musical angels. ⁶ These panels are stylistically very close to the axis window depicting the Passion of Christ given by the Malet family to the former priory church of St Lô in Bourg-Achard, Eure, c.1500–1510, and are almost certainly by the same glass painter, although not from the same church. ⁷ The second panel in the bottom row is glass from Normandy, c.1530–40; the subject is unidentified. The final panel is a depiction of the Massacre of the Innocents in Rhenish glass, probably from Cologne, c.1540, under the influence of Anton von Woensam. ⁸