William Glasby (1863-1941)

Glasby joined the stained glass firm James Powell & Sons as an apprentice in 1876, eventually becoming chief painter, before working for Henry Holiday and Morris & Co. and making his own designs from the 1890s. The present pair of works are his first known independent designs, and received an honourable mention in the stained-glass category of The Studio magazine prize competition of 1897. 'Mullion' was the pseudonym under which Glasby entered the competition. Their non-religious subjects are unusual in Glasby's oeuvre, and it seems that the glass panels may have been made for the fledgling South Kensington Museum as a demonstration of the art form. They were later purchased by J. Pierpoint Morgan, and are now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York.