The Seventh Window is an impressive example of a well-researched international interdisciplinary study which takes as its central focus the stained-glass window donated by Philip II and his second wife, Mary Tudor, to the Sint Janskerk in Gouda in 1557. The King's Window is part of a long tradition of donations of glass windows by the Habsburg house of Burgundy in expression of their piety. This public art also had a political message: Philip appears as ruler of the Netherlands, king-consort of England and king of Spain. The monarchs are shown kneeling in prayer at the Last Supper - transubstantiation was then a raging controversy - and the dedication of the Temple of Solomon fills the upper register. The Sint Janskerk is unique in being the only church in the Netherlands to still have all its sixteenth- and seventeenth-century windows (sixty in total), with their cartoons and drawings, in its possession. It is nothing short of miraculous that they survived: in 1572 Gouda sided with Prince William of Orange, thus opposing Spanish domination and opening the way for the spread of the Reformation. Despite the iconoclastic riots, the windows were preserved, largely due to the policy of the city council. During the Second World War the panels from the windows were stored in vaults in the dunes of Vogelenzang.
This volume was conceived by Wim de Groot while he restored the cartoon in 1993-96. Surprisingly, it was little known and made its first international public appearance in 1998 at the exhibition Felipe II. Un príncipe del renacimiento at the Museo del Prado, Madrid (reviewed in The Burlington Magazine 141 (1999), pp.127-29. De Groot introduces us to the work of two of the most important sixteenth-century Netherlandish glass painters, the brothers Dirck (c. 1500-74) and Wouter Crabeth (c. 1505-89), who worked on the decorative programme for the Sint Janskerk from 1555 to 1571. Twenty essays, with a prologue by Geoffrey Parker, provide a cornucopia of information about the political, social and religious history of the period, as well as the context of the commission and the techniques of stained-glass-making. This is a very handsomely produced book with excellent illustrations and full scholarly apparatus. A CD-Rom with illustrations of the Seventh Window and its cartoon is available separately.
ROSEMARIE MULCAHY
University College, Dublin
THE SEVENTH WINDOW. THE KING'S WINDOW DONATED BY PHILIP
II AND MARY TUDOR TO SINT JANSKERK IN GOUDA (1557), Edited
and conceived by Wim de Groot, with contributions by various authors.
Book, 303 pp. incl. 116 col. + numerous b. & w. ills. (€40) + CD-Rom (€10).
Verloren
Publishers, Hilversum, 2005, ISBN 90-6550-822-8.