Unknown Maker, French

Made by specialized artisans, stained-glass windows brought dazzling colored light into medieval cathedrals. Clear molten glass could be colored by the addition of metallic oxides, then poured, cut, and secured with lead framing. Stained glass served both decorative and narrative functions, inspiring and instructing the faithful with depictions of biblical stories.

Enclosed in a half circle, a winged serpent pursues a man who looks over his shoulder. The image may derive from prophesies in the Book of Revelation, also called the Apocalypse. This fragment came from an oculus (round window) in the cathedral of the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame at Mantes-la-Jolie in Normandy, France. Sometime between about 1800 and 1919, the fragment was reconfigured and joined with the additional glass that now completes the panel.