Unidentified Saint Composite Window - Abbey Church of Saint-Ouen, Rouen

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Composite Window

 

This window (c1550) is a composite assemblage combining fragments of sixteenth-century narrative glass with nineteenth-century architectural framing and extensive twentieth-century restoration. The programme appears to have depicted episodes from the life of an unidentified saint. According to Jean Lafond, one of the surviving scenes may represent the translation of relics, suggesting a cycle related either to Saint Ouen or Saint Leufroy. The identification, however, remains uncertain due to the fragmentary nature of the surviving iconography.

The present arrangement consists of five lancets beneath a unified Gothic canopy structure. Reading from left to right, the composition includes:
— a landscape panel (restored and largely repainted by Le Chevallier, c.1980);
— three narrative scenes of uncertain subject, one plausibly showing a translation of relics (original elements c.1550, with nineteenth-century insertions and later repainting);
— a second landscape panel (Le Chevallier, c.1980).

Each lancet is enclosed within an architectural frame installed in 1852, with rebuilt bases and canopies that regularise the appearance of the ensemble. Decorative grisaille and ornamental glazing, added during the 1980 restoration, fill the spandrels and tympanum; these include modern fermaillets as well as the arms of the abbey.

The surviving sixteenth-century elements originate from Saint-Godard in Rouen and were incorporated into Saint-Ouen during nineteenth-century reorganisation. Only a handful of original figures from the sixteenth-century narrative scenes remain recognisable; the rest of the window has been reconstructed or re-imagined using contemporary glass.

The window underwent major restoration and consolidation between 1961 and 1976, with the final campaign by Le Chevallier around 1980 completing the present scheme.