Cloisters to the Detroit Institute of Arts, USA in 1926
The six panels of exceptional quality of 16th stained glass were in the cloisters. They are now in America in the ownership of the Detroit Instiute of Arts, Michigan.
Saint Adrian and Saint Anthony Abbott
Virgin as Queen of Heaven and Saint Wenceslas
Saint Barbara and Virgin and Child Holding a Top
The cloisters were an addition to the church in the early 19th century for John Penn, the owner of the adjacent Manor house and Stoke Park estate. He had already built a palladium Mansion house in the estate and demolished most of the Manor house. The cloisters formed a private entrance into the church for the owners of the Manor house. In 1926 the relatively new owner of the Manor house, Colonel Albert G. Shaw, knew he owned the cloisters and therefore owned all the eight panels of stained glass (the whereabouts of two panels of architecual canopies are not known). He reached an agreement with the Church to remove the panels and make good with other glass and provide some of his land at the exit of the cloisters. The Church became the owner of the cloisters and a stip of land to the next to the cloisters. The panels have since been sold on several times.
A debate exists as to whether the panels came from the Manor house or were installed at the time or shortly after the building of the cloisters. The earliest provenance of the panels remains unknown.
All photos of the six panels are courtesy of the © Detroit Institute of Arts
Dossier: New Observations concerning the Stoke Poges windows by Yao-Fen You of the Detroit Institute of Arts