Lot Essay
This stained glass panel depicts St Ursula before a Northern European landscape. Its style suggests that the panel was designed by Henry Payne, who along with Mary Newill and Sidney Meteyard became known as the Birmingham Group or possibly one of his followers such as A.J.Davis. Henry Payne (1868-1939) joined the staff of the Birimingham School of Art in 1889 initially studying painting and drawing and then designing stained glass in the 1890's. Although a religious scene the panel was probably commercially available for use in a private residence and shows Payne's characteristic busy stylen filling up the whole window. Attribution for his early panels is difficult but from 1897 some of his designs were produced by the Bromsgrove Guild under Walter Gilbert's management.