The Chatham University Tiffany Alumnae Memorial Window

One of the most significant Chatham University landmarks and, indeed, a Pittsburgh treasure, is the Alumnae Memorial Window, designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany. Believed to be one of Tiffany’s earliest windows, Chatham’s Alumnae Memorial Window was created in 1889 as a gift to the then – Chatham College. Its story, from its original commission to its ultimate resting place in the College’s Science Complex, is a story that stretches over more than a century. “The Harrowing Experience” “I can easily believe now, if I ever before doubted it, that ‘Rome was not built in a day.’” So were the sentiments of an alumna of the Pennsylvania College for Women – now Chatham University – more than one hundred years ago as she described “the harrowing experience” she and four other alumnae shared at the end of the 19th century. In 1889, alumnae representing the classes of 1873 to 1888 commissioned a stained glass window to be given as a gift to the University. Out of four design proposals, the women chose one from Tiffany, then a relatively unknown artist. As described in the Alumnae Association’s report, “The only remaining drawing was the one from Tiffany which we chose, and whose merits I will let you judge for yourselves in the completed window. We do not expect all will be pleased, but if anyone thinks our task has been an easy one, I only ask them to try it for themselves.” More than two-thirds of the 130 alumnae of the classes 1873-1888 gave to the window. It cost $650, a considerable price in 1889. In a grand ceremony that year, the window was unveiled in Old Dilworth Hall chapel.

Tiffany’s Window Endures at Chatham University
For the next 36 years the window was an intricate part of the university’s chapel in Dilworth Hall. By 1925, the window was covered with soot and grime – telltale remnants of Pittsburgh’s industrial heritage. The arms, face, lunette wreath, and two side wreaths incorporated into the window’s design were completely covered in carbon. According to the university’s Alumni Recorder, the window was removed “to allow for more light and ventilation” in the chapel. Interestingly, by the 1920s Tiffany windows had fallen out of fashion, and many were taken down and destroyed. Chatham’s was placed in crates and stored in various places around campus, where it remained untouched for 75 years.

Enter Chatham’s new president, Esther L. Barazzone, in 1992. Chatham emeritus English professor and archivist Dr. John Cummins knew the window’s location and showed it to Dr. Barazzone, who immediately contacted Tiffany experts in New York whether they would confirm its authenticity. Once they did, it became a delicate matter of restoration and display.

Chatham University alumna Marion Swannie Rand, class of 1945, underwrote the $250,000 restoration performed by Damien Peduto, one of the country’s leading Tiffany experts who has been restoring Tiffany windows for more than 30 years. The restoration of the window – one of only 50 remaining from that period – took an estimated 400 hours. This was the window’s second restoration, the first probably done by Tiffany Studios in the early 1900s.

Later, during the design phase of the new laboratory building, the architects highlighted a large wall in the atrium as an ideal site for an impressive art commission. However, it was realized that the University already possessed the perfect installation for such a prominent space. Today, safely suspended in the Science Complex’s Kresge Atrium and illuminated from behind, the Tiffany Alumnae Memorial Window continues to shine like cornerstones for generations of Chatham women.

Style and Techniques
The inspiration for the Alumnae window is Michelangelo’s Erythraean Sibyl from the Sistine Chapel ceiling. The Erythraean Sibyl is one of six sibyls, or ancient female sages, who foresaw the future. The Erythraean Sibyl achieved fame because she prophesized many events crucial to Christianity. Daughter-in-law to Noah, the Erythraean Sibyl is acknowledged for foretelling the presentation of Christ in the temple, the calling of the Apostles, and the Apocalypse. Rather than being influenced by the sibyl’s relationship with Christianity, Tiffany was probably most inspired by her intellectual nature and beautiful form.

In Michelangelo’s sibyl there are two genii - one lights the lamp and the other rubs his eyes. Both symbolize the late hour when inspiration abandons the spirit. However, the role of the genius is quite important to the Alumnae window, as it enhances what the Erythraean Sibyl represents --intellect and knowledge of womankind.

Surrounding the sibyl in the Alumnae window is an arch of wreathed names of great figures of intellect and learning considered important in 1888. The names along the top arch are great writers and poets of the period: Moliere, Shakespeare, Virgil, Homer, Dante, Petrarch, and Milton. The bottom portion of the window contains names of those who were considered important in philosophy, architecture, and the sciences: Raphael, Pliny, Shakespeare, Galileo, Plato, and Michelangelo. Intriguingly, Shakespeare’s name appears on both the top and bottom portions of the window, possibly because Shakespeare is a literary master as well as a great intellectual figure.

Tiffany’s Alumnae window borrows many ideas from Michelangelo’s sibyl. Their musculature is almost identical. Michelangelo would have studied a male model for his sibyl, thus Tiffany’s sibyl seems very masculine. One distinct difference of Tiffany’s is the embroidered tablecloth placed on the lectern. Says Conservator Damien Peduto, “Perhaps he wanted to highlight this area because it is only there that he used true Favrile glass, a molten combination of common white glass called opalescent, used by the early cosmetic industry to bottle its creams and ointments, and the clear colored glass called antique, used in stained glass windows for centuries. Tiffany was not the first to use opalescent glass in a window, but he was the first to combine the two glasses --- opalescent and antique – together. Consequently, in 1894 he patented his Favrile glass. A blend of as many as five separate colors, the glass was rolled into sheets. However, merely getting the two disparate glasses to blend and not shatter into thousands of pieces when cooled was only the beginning. Once Tiffany mastered the technique of manufacturing colored opalescent glass, he began to experiment with methods to improve the quality and variety. It would take years of work before Tiffany found just the right combination of chemicals, which when mixed together and heated, would yield a substance of brilliance to please him. He wanted it to possess an inner glow, so that light appeared to come from within the glass itself rather than from a source behind it. Tiffany was not simply trying to obscure the light as it passed through the glass, but to magnify it to create a gem-like luminescence.” Peduto adds that the use of Favrile glass in the Chatham window was from the “early version of Favrile.”

Tiffany also had to simplify Michelangelo’s form to translate it into stained glass. Unlike painting, where one can easily create shadow and depth with the paint, glass is much more difficult to work with. Tiffany used his Favrile and antique glasses to create different effects. Although he painted many areas, such as the face, hands, and feet, the primary effect of the work comes from his unbelievable glass techniques.