Jupiter

Jupiter is part of an extensive series of stained glass windows made by Morris & Co. in 1901 for Hume Towers, Branksome Road, Bournemouth, which was the home of Sir William Earnshaw Cooper K.B.E., C.I.E. (1843-1924). This series included seven lights depicting the Morning Star, Evening Star, Sun and Moon, along with Mars, Jupiter and Venus, for the upper section of a large Library window. The Hume Towers window was a later version, from cartoons by Burne-Jones for Morris & Co., which were originally made in 1879 for ‘Woodlands’, the unidentified home of a ‘Mr Holden’.

The Hume Towers series differed from the 1879 ‘Woodlands’ series in having seven instead of eight figures (the Saturn from the earlier sequence was omitted). According to A. C. Sewter (op. cit., vol. 2, p. 25), the scheme of glazing for Hume Towers was listed in Morris & Co.’s Catalogue of Designs in April 1901. It would appear that the glass-painting of the Jupiter panel was carried out by one of the firm’s craftsmen named ‘Walters’, who can be identified as Robert Walters (b. 1853) and who was employed by Morris & Co. from 1893 to 1902.

Sewter recorded that the Morris & Co. scheme of glazing at Hume Towers was badly damaged by a flying bomb during the Second World War and that only eight figure panels (from a total of twenty-one, including the seven in the Library window) survived. However, subsequent research by the late Donald J. R. Green revealed that the bombing took place in November 1940 – i.e. before any flying bomb attacks on Britain – and that at least twelve panels remained relatively undamaged, of which the Jupiter panel is presumably one. Hume Towers was sold to a property developer and demolished in 1966, at which time (or possibly earlier) the surviving stained glass was salvaged and dispersed.

We are grateful to Peter Cormack for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.