Bernard Van Orley - Stained Glass

Stained Glass

At the end of his life he also started designing stained-glass windows . The windows in the northern transept of the St. Michael and Gudula Cathedral in Brussels depict members of the House of Habsburg (Charles V and his wife Isabella of Portugal), Charlemagne and Elisabeth of Hungary and scenes from the Legend of the Miraculous Host, while the windows in the southern transept Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia and his wife Maria of Austria, sister of Charles V, kneeling in front of a vertical Trinity with St Louis and the Virgin with Child. These windows mark a change in style. The dynasty is still embedded in a religious framework, but this time the donor is emphasized and no longer the venerated saint. It is even no longer deemed necessary to legitimize the position of the sovereign by a genealogical tree, as Philip the Handsome, the father of Charles V, is not represented. These windows can be ascribed with certainty to drawings by Bernard van Orley. They were executed by the master glass-worker Jean Haeck.

He also designed the stained-glass windows for the St Rumbolds Cathedral, Malines depicting Margarete of Austria and her third husband Philibert II, Duke of Savoy and Christ entering Jerusalem. These windows were destroyed during the religious troubles between 1566 and 1585. In 2004 an unpublished coloured drawing of these windows has been discovered in Valenciennes

The Sint-Bavokerk in Haarlem, Holland, has also a set of stained-glass windows by van Orley, depicting the donor Joris van Egmont, bishop of Utrecht and his patron saint Martin.