2 Pane of Death
Page 25
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Yes. He made it clear that he wanted this program to be put to the broadest possible use, so it looks like the FBI will get it. But there’s one more really interesting provision in Ferguson’s will.”
Matt was having far too much fun with this, and he had certainly piqued my curiosity. “Okay, pal, spit it out.”
“He established and endowed a fund to provide what you might call a finder’s fee—a reward for people who provide material assistance or information in recovering stolen artworks. It will be administered by an independent board of directors, not the FBI. There’s a good chance that you might qualify.”
“That sounds nice. What does that mean, out here in the real world?”
“Peter specified that the fee should be a percentage of the fair market value of the recovered property—a flat ten percent.” He sat back and waited for me to work this out.
This was a simple calculation. If Peter’s collection was worth, conservatively, $3 million, then 10 percent would be . . . $300,000. Even net of taxes and such, that was a nice piece of change. Oh, wow.
Peter’s gift from beyond the grave. He’d been a good man, and I wanted to thank him.
“Matt, I think I’d like to order a bottle of champagne. I want to toast the late Peter Ferguson.”
A Brief History of Stained Glass
The techniques of medieval stained glass were described around 1125 by the German monk Theophilus, who set forth both the philosophy underlying the use of glass and the technology that fascinated him. He laid out the steps for constructing a window: Mark the dimensions, select the colors, cut the pieces and fit them together, enclose the pieces with lead cames, and solder them together before setting into a wooden frame. Relatively few changes have occurred since.
The glass itself was colored by the addition of metallic oxides, creating intense blues, greens, and reds. In some cases the color became too dark to permit light to pass, so an alternate technique of “flashing” a thin layer of color over clear glass emerged. The glass was blown and shaped into sheets that were then cut into smaller pieces. Details such as faces, drapery folds, or inscriptions could be added with paint, after which the pieces would be baked in a kiln to make the paint fuse with the glass.
MEDIEVAL GLASS
Stained glass was used for windows as early as the first century AD; examples have been found in the ruins of Roman villas in Pompeii. But stained glass took on new importance with the surge of church construction in the Middle Ages, especially the tenth through twelfth centuries, when glass was used as pictorial shorthand to illustrate scenes and stories from the Bible for a largely illiterate population.
This form of glass art reached its peak with the Gothic cathedrals of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when a better understanding of architectural structure allowed the walls to be opened up and filled with radiant glass panels.
THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY REVIVAL
A revived version of Gothic architecture became the dominant style in the middle and later nineteenth century, accompanied by a resurgence of the use of stained glass. This movement inspired the Englishman William Morris, who created his own firm in 1861 to provide home decoration. Stained glass was prominent in his workshop from the beginning.
At a time when mass-production techniques made glass available to a much wider market, Morris and his colleagues of the era believed that machine production was degrading and resulted in mass quantities of inferior goods. As a result, he became obsessed with craftsmanship and detail, as seen in many of the windows of his time. His example inspired a number of American crafts-men as well.
ART NOUVEAU
Art Nouveau, or “new art,” emerged from Europe and America at the end of the nineteenth century, a lingering reaction to the mass-produced designs of the Industrial Revolution as well as to Victorian traditions. The style, inspired by natural forms, emphasized sensuous curves and iridescent colors.
John La Farge and Louis Comfort Tiffany vie for credit for the invention of opalescent glass in the 1880s. Tiffany was one of the leading proponents of the new style, but he was also an innovator in glassmaking. He founded the Tiffany Glass Company in 1885 to complement his interior decorating company, and patented a new type of colored, opalescent glass known as “favrile.”
Tiffany is perhaps best known today for his glass lampshades, in which he combined the rich colors of his glass with intricate cutting and often layered glass to achieve varied effects. He developed a technique of using copper foil to hold the glass pieces together, rather than the traditional, heavier lead cames, which enabled him to take advantage of the new electric lighting.
GLASS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
William Morris’s ideas reached the United States through the Greene brothers on the West Coast, Gustav Stickley on the East Coast, and Frank Lloyd Wright in the Midwest. Wright popularized the Prairie Style and brought about a new integration of buildings with their landscape and furnishings. His open interiors were a perfect setting for glass doors and windows.
Wright emphasized simple, geometric patterns—parallel lines and smaller squares or circles, set with minimal leading. At least one of the houses he designed has over 100 leaded windows, and over the course of his career he designed more than 4,500 windows for 160 buildings, both private and public.
Recipes
Em’s Foolproof Slow-Cooker Chicken Chili
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 large white onion, chopped
3 ancho chiles with seeds and veins removed, cut into
strips or pieces
2 teaspoons oregano
2 large cloves garlic (you may leave them whole or chop
them)
salt and black pepper to taste
4 cups chicken broth
1 15-ounce can beans (you may use black, white, or whatever
you have)
Fresh cilantro, chopped
In a slow cooker, put the chicken, chopped onion, ancho chiles, oregano, garlic, and salt and pepper. Pour in the chicken broth to cover. Cook at low heat for 4 hours (more or less).
Remove the chicken breasts, shred them (when they’re cool enough to handle), and return them to the cooker. Add the beans and continue cooking for another hour (more or less).
Just before serving, add the cilantro and stir.
Serve over cooked rice. Serves 4.
The beauty of this dish is its flexibility. You can use pork instead of chicken, or increase the proportion of meat or beans. If you want more heat, add more dried chiles or a different kind of chile, or throw in a dash of Tabasco sauce. You can stir in heavy cream or sour cream at the end. It’s very hard to mess up!
Stained-Glass Cookies
For the dough:
½ cup (¼ pound) butter
½ cup solid vegetable shortening
1½ cups sugar
½ cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
3¾ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
For the “glass” centers:
30 to 40 hard candies in different flavors and colors (LifeSavers will work)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat butter, shortening, and sugar until creamy. Beat in the sour cream, vanilla, and egg.
In another bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, and salt. Add gradually to butter mixture and blend thoroughly.
Cover dough tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
Divide the dough into quarters. Working with one portion at a time (keep the others refrigerated), roll out on a floured board to about ¼-inch thick. Cut out with a large cookie cutter (round is easiest, but you may use other ornamental forms). Transfer cut cookies to a greased baking sheet, leaving about 1 inch between them. Cut out the centers with a smaller cutter (again, any shape you like, but leave at least half an inch a
round the outside of the cookie).
If you wish to hang these cookies, make a small hole in the cookie through which you can thread a ribbon later.
Place the hard candies, by color, in small plastic bags. Place a towel over the bags and crush the candy by hitting it with a mallet or rolling pin.
Fill the holes in the cookies with the crushed candy, then bake in preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly browned and the candy has melted.
Let the cookies cool completely, then twist gently to loosen from the cookie sheet and slide off.
Store in a single layer in an airtight container.
Makes about 2½ dozen, depending on size.