{"id":9100,"date":"2014-09-29T12:01:51","date_gmt":"2014-09-29T16:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=9100"},"modified":"2014-09-29T12:01:51","modified_gmt":"2014-09-29T16:01:51","slug":"the-lost-angels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=9100","title":{"rendered":"The Lost Angels"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"After<\/a>
After a lengthy search\u2014and many dead ends\u2014Taras Pavlovsky, dean of the library, has helped to bring two of TCNJ\u2019s lost medallions back to campus. Photo by Peter Murphy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After a quick glance from behind his paired computer monitors, Taras Pavlovsky, dean of the library, springs up, fans files across the coffee table like an archival croupier and starts to tell a story.<\/p>\n

It cuts across genres: It\u2019s a mystery, a history, a whodunit, a parable and a homecoming tale. It\u2019s the story of a few stained glass medallions that vanished more than 60 years ago, and it\u2019s the story of how two of them\u2014works that depicted goddesses modeled on frescoes in the Vatican\u2014made their way home.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been seven months, but Pavlovsky still thrills to discuss the rediscovery. After beating the bushes and chasing dead ends, he had given up hope about 10 years ago. And for Pavlovsky to throw up his hands, the search must have been exhausted indeed. Pavlovsky is not a man easily depleted, let alone deterred.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see, I\u2019d spent a long time on this search. It became a quest. Every lead fizzled; the dots refused to connect. But then out of nowhere, these two goddesses just reappear,\u201d Pavlovsky said, eyes brightening behind his wireless glasses. \u201cIt\u2019s phenomenal,\u201d he added, with a clap of his hands.<\/p>\n

Upon seeing them now, robed women fluttering in a cobalt sky, it is hard to reconcile their grace and fragility with the turmoil of their century. A former music historian and chemical engineer, Pavlovsky\u2019s the sort of man whose excitement feeds on the details, which were first pieced together by Patricia Beaber, the longtime head reference librarian. The story begins more than 100 years ago, when the New Jersey State Normal School was thriving in Trenton, and its present Ewing campus was so much forest and plain.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
One of the medallions hanging in the main reading room of the old library. Photo by Peter Murphy of an image in TCNJ\u2019s archives<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thirty stained glass windows graced the old auditorium on North Clinton Avenue, constructed in 1894. A couple photographs of the auditorium survive, dimly showing the colored glass on the top sash of the third-floor windows.<\/p>\n

They were more than school fixtures; they were presences. Every morning, music played beneath them as the students marched to assembly and every year commencement was held amid their glow.<\/p>\n

The windows depicted an array of Muses, personifications of poetry, history, science, religion and other disciplines, as well as Lord Trent\u2019s coat of arms and a host of neoclassical figures. Two of the loveliest images\u2014those ladies likely based on Raphael\u2019s Hours of the Day and Night<\/em>\u2014glowed on the back wall, in the eighth and twelfth windows.<\/p>\n

Graduating classes made a tradition of donating the windows. Alumni of the teacher\u2019s college, then known as the Normal School, as well as of the Model School, a K\u201312 school run by the Normal School, funded each piece. Although the donations occurred between 1899 and 1914, it is unclear whether the windows were installed sequentially or all at once, and subsequently attributed to the alumni classes.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody knows exactly when they arrived, but they quickly became a part of the school\u2019s identity,\u201d Pavlovsky said. Before long, it seemed as if they had always been there. And always would be. It was the way they appeared at daybreak and receded every night, almost as part of the natural order. Through decades and upheavals large and small\u2014changing curricula, new college leadership, a world war and the Depression\u2014they went about their business, day after day, transforming light into bodies.<\/p>\n

The game is afoot<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In early 2005, Beaber, a historian and librarian, chanced upon a 1939 clipping from the State Signal,<\/em> as the student newspaper was then known. When she read it, her historian antennae gave a telltale tingle.<\/p>\n

The article celebrated the addition of stained glass medallions to the library. They had been transplanted from the old auditorium\u2019s beloved windows in Trenton and installed in the new campus, forming a vital bond to the college\u2019s past.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis restoration project is an attempt to strengthen the links between the old school and new college,\u201d the article said.<\/p>\n

\"ga0608window-11-Kurdzuk\"<\/a>
One of the medallions hanging in an old conference room in Green Hall. Photo by \u201cThe Star-Ledger,\u201d Newark, NJ, of an image in TCNJ\u2019s archives.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now, more than 65 years later, the college was about to open a new library, and sought to honor its history. Beaber was hooked. She sent the newsprint to Pavlovksy, accompanied by a note.<\/p>\n

\u201cWouldn\u2019t it be nice if one could be located? I had heard of them, but never actually saw one.\u201d<\/p>\n

She dived back into the archives and began piecing together a paper trail. There wasn\u2019t much to go on\u2014a few grainy black-and-white photographs, indecipherable minutes from meetings, business correspondence and a few administrative papers\u2014but the game was afoot.<\/p>\n

Like a latter-day Holmes and Watson, Pavlovsky and Beaber set out to solve the \u201cMystery of the Stained Glass Windows.\u201d Their hunt brought them to a shuttered tavern in the small town of Crosswicks, an antiques shop in New Hope, Pennsylvania, and deep into every vault and sub-basement on campus.<\/p>\n

Pavlovsky caught a thread. He had honed this talent as a graduate student in musicology at Rutgers University, where he specialized in the paleography of medieval Slavonic chant notation. He loved to pore over disparate sources in search of a shared theme or symbol. Where others saw unrelated smudges, he saw references, intertextual links, allusions. As he cross-referenced the photos and archival records, the outline of a story emerged.<\/p>\n

The college moved to the Ewing campus in the mid- 1930s, and the alumni committee was determined not to lose the iconic windows in the process. The committee tapped Mrs. Joseph L. Bodine (nee Gertrude Scudder), the wife of a state Supreme Court Justice and a 1911 graduate of the Model School, to select the best pieces from the abandoned auditorium.<\/p>\n

In an even, low-slung cursive, the committee minutes from February 7, 1938, capture Mrs. Bodine\u2019s conclusions: \u201c12 of the windows are unsuitable for further use and should be stored. 18 in the rear have real artistic value. From each one of these, two medallions could be cut for twenty-five dollars apiece.\u201d<\/p>\n

The work went to George W. Sotter Studios, of Holicong, Pennsylvania. It seems\u00a0 Sotter and his assistant, Mr. Schmalz, worked on the auditorium windows more or less one at a time (to their chagrin), as funding came in from the alumni. The $25 it cost to cut and rehang the medallions in 1939\u2014still the throes of the Depression\u2014would be more than $425 today.<\/p>\n

Sotter started work on the windows in the spring of 1939. On May 13, President Roscoe L. West showed the committee the first medallion, which was to hang in the south window of the conference room in Green Hall.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A larger and bolder replica of the Athena-like image illuminates the landing on the lower level of the library staircase. Photo by \u201cThe Star-Ledger,\u201d Newark, NJ<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Beaber tracked down yearbook photos of that first medallion. It adds an upbeat splendor to the scene, where suited men grin and women sit in bobby socks and saddle shoes, skirts smoothed to the knees. It is meant as a backdrop but the goddess takes the limelight, this vague but exuberant figure, robe twisting, torch atop outstretched arm.<\/p>\n

A second medallion haunts the yearbooks. Even though the images are dim, the statuesque Greek figure still emits a certain grace and stability. She resembles Athena, with a mace-like object in one hand, an orb or maybe an owl in the other.<\/p>\n

Those two are among the six medallions Sotter completed by September 1939. While a few choice windows turned out to be too damaged to use, the work continued sporadically over the next 18 months. Sotter and Schmalz produced at least two more, even while the studio was swamped with commissions from four churches nationwide. Work continued even after Sotter slipped on the ice in the winter of 1940 and broke his leg.<\/p>\n

At least eight pieces were made in all, seven of which hung in the main reading room of the library. Feeling that the new campus retained enough of the old Trenton icons, President West wrote Sotter on February 15, 1941, that he was \u201cinclined to think that this [window] is the last one which will be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spurred by these findings, Pavlovsky contacted old administrators and school officials, and published a summary of the research in this magazine to scare up more\u00a0\u00a0 information. Faculty recalled seeing the pieces up until 1960 or so, but nobody had a clue as to what became of them. Maybe they were lost during renovations to the library in the 1960s? Maybe they fell apart and were tossed away? No matter the cause, the angels had gone over the brink, into oblivion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was gutted. After making headway in the archives, it seemed that maybe we had a shot at solving the mystery. Then everything just flatlined,\u201d Pavlovsky said with a shrug. \u201cTime swallowed them.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the new library opened in October 2005, a larger and bolder replica of the Athena-like image illuminated the landing on the lower level staircase. The inscription underneath reads, \u201cThe original window, now lost, was a gift of the graduating Model School class of 1910.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that was that.<\/p>\n

From oblivion to the inbox<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

On January 16 of this year, Pavlovsky got an email from the reference desk. It wasn\u2019t something that happened all that often, but the librarian sent this request upward, remembering that years ago Pavlovsky had something to do with old stained glass windows.<\/p>\n

\"ga0608window-5-Kurdzuk\"<\/a>
The medallion depicting Raphael’s “Sixth Hour of the Night.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He clicked on the email. It had come from someone named George Costantini. A stranger. \u201cAs soon as I read that email, I knew,\u00a0 shoot, this guy\u2019s got our windows! There was no question in my mind,\u201d Pavlovsky said. \u201cAfter scraping myself off the ceiling, I took some deep breaths and contacted George.\u201d<\/p>\n

In case it was another bogus lead, Pavlovsky tried to sound nonchalant and disinterested. There was no need; Costantini wasn\u2019t playing games. He had two stained glass angels that his late father had bought sometime in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

His father, also named George, had been an avid collector. He had a passion for vintage machinery; he delighted in the combination of industrial heft and handcrafted intricacy, but also collected other artifacts. While clearing out his father\u2019s basement, Costantini unearthed two tightly bound slabs. Inside the foam and plywood sarcophagi lay the angels. They had slumbered all those years among the jumble of steam engines, Civil War memorabilia and fishing rods.<\/p>\n

\"ga0608window-4-Kurdzuk\"<\/a>
The medallion depicting Raphael’s “First Hour of the Night.” This photo and the one above by “The Star-Ledger,” Newark, NJ<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI hadn\u2019t seen them for 35 years or so,\u201d Costantini said. \u201cThey used to hang in my parents\u2019 sunroom, before it was remodeled. My father never said where he picked them up or what they portrayed, but I remembered him mentioning that they came from a school in Trenton.\u201d<\/p>\n

Costantini suspected the school in question was the New Jersey School for the Deaf, which had been near their old home, but he took a stab at contacting TCNJ, given its roots in the area.<\/p>\n

Pavlovsky and Emily Croll, the director of TCNJ Art Gallery, drove over to meet Costantini at his house in Columbus, south of Trenton.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they came here and saw the windows, they were elated,\u201d Costantini\u00a0 remembered. \u201cTaras was grinning from ear to ear. He explained this quest he had been on, this crusade. It was obvious how important the windows were to him, and to the college in general.\u201d<\/p>\n

Costantini and his sister Joyce decided to donate the windows, but balked at the paperwork and appraisals required. They wanted a straightforward handover. In the end, they sold the windows to the college for a nominal sum.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t in it for the money,\u201d Costantini said. \u201cWe felt that the windows belonged back with the school. It was how my father would\u2019ve wanted it, and we were happy to bring about this fairy-tale ending.\u201d<\/p>\n

This spring Pavlovsky bumped into Beaber, his old sidekick, at the Lawrenceville farmer\u2019s market. When he told her that two of the medallions had finally been found, she literally jumped for joy, said Pavlovsky.<\/p>\n

Roman ruins, a Vatican bath and TCNJ<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The euphoria gave way to curiosity for Pavlovsky, as usual. Now that two of the medallions were back, the windows demanded further explanation. A decade ago, he had turned the Internet upside down looking for some clue as to their meaning. Who were these neoclassical figures? What were they holding? He found plenty of information, but now he started looking again. With high-resolution photos of the windows before him and online resources more abundant, he soon hit bull\u2019s-eye.<\/p>\n

Michelangelo Maestri, an 18th-century artist, made a career of reproducing Raphael\u2019s work, including his allegorical depictions of the 12 hours of the day and night (the ancient Greeks did not ascribe to a uniform 24-hour day). The recovered windows were of the first and sixth hours of the night, perhaps the most atmospheric images of the series.<\/p>\n

In the \u201cFirst Hour of the Night,\u201d a golden-haired woman in rippling robes hovers against a darkening navy sky, in her hands a flower and an owl. Her head is turned to the owl while a sunlike star\u2014corona, face and all\u2014looks down on her impassively.<\/p>\n

This is the Athena-like image that was eventually reproduced for the TCNJ library in 2005. What resembled a mace is a poppy flower, known for its soporific powers, while the owl represents a guardian of the night. The star is Mars, which, according to writer Sarah Hutchins Killikelly, \u201cbetokens the many evils that threaten mankind in the night.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ga0608window-1-Kurdzuk\"<\/a>
The medallions lay on a bed of archival sheeting and quilted blue cloth, inert and flat, the painted glass holding a dull metallic sheen. Then Emily Croll raised them upright and, voil\u00e0, they turned on. Photo by \u201cThe Star-Ledger,\u201d Newark, NJ<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The other window depicts Raphael\u2019s \u201cSixth Hour of the Night.\u201d It features a bolder, brighter goddess, sporting butterfly wings. She heralds a beacon-like star overhead and cradles a singing swan, the sky blushing pink beneath her pale feet. She \u201crepresents the sweet pictures that dreams of early morning bring\u201d and gestures triumphantly toward Mercury, the morning star.<\/p>\n

The original two goddesses were among 12 frescoes painted in the Vatican around 1516. The series was stuccoed over long ago, so there is some disagreement about their backdrop. Some say they decorated Cardinal Bibbiena\u2019s bathroom, others the Sala Borgia, but there is a general consensus that they come from Raphael, the master of the High Italian Renaissance.<\/p>\n

The aesthetic chain goes back thousands of years. It is believed that Raphael based his goddesses on Roman frescoes. In turn, Michelangelo Maestri and others popularized the frescoes centuries later. Eventually they found form in the Normal School\u2019s windows.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what makes the history so fascinating. The stained glass images were reproductions of reproductions of reproductions of reproductions,\u201d Pavlovsky said. \u201cThey recur through time, without strict beginning or end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brought back to light<\/strong><\/p>\n

In TCNJ\u2019s Art and Interactive Multimedia Building, Croll placed the windows on a table, on a bed of archival sheeting and quilted blue cloth. They lay there, inert and flat, the painted glass holding a dull metallic sheen. Then she raised them upright and, voil\u00e0, they turned on. It was a strange alchemy, the instant transformation from base slab to radiant being.<\/p>\n

\u201cInitially, I thought they would be pretty pieces of college memorabilia, but once I saw them, I realized of course that they strike a universal chord,\u201d Croll said. \u201cThey are beautiful 19th-century works of art.\u201d<\/p>\n

Measuring 27.5″ x 19.5″, the pieces are modest compared to other stained glass works. They are not the dazzling rose windows of Chartres or Tiffany\u2019s brilliant pageant, but they still awe. Every stained glass window carries a gleam of the cathedral, a glint of the sacred. And in their way, the goddesses are perfect.<\/p>\n

Their images will soon be hung again on campus. There are unanswered questions, but they hardly matter now that the medallions are back. In fact, the mysteries make the pieces even more compelling and meaningful. Things fall apart, time escapes us and the world scatters, but it\u2019s not all disarray. There are recoveries and connections despite the fray. Things come together, after all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

A luminous, anonymous world: An effort to appraise h\u0131story<\/span><\/h1>\n

A tugboat named Patricia<\/em> pushed a barge up Newtown Creek, the sludgy channel separating Brooklyn and Queens. It rested outside a blocklong brick building where Mary Clerkin Higgins has her glass studio.<\/p>\n

Shelves and cubbies of iridescent glass line the room like troves of dismantled rainbows. On sturdy worktables lie gemlike windows and sheets of tracing paper with elaborate designs. A large stained glass disk from Canterbury Cathedral is under repair, a hard pool of medieval colors in post-industrial Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

\"Pavlovsky_2509_DSC9613_v2\"<\/a>
Pavlovsky in TCNJ\u2019s archives. Photo by Peter Murphy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Higgins, a leading stained glass conservator and artist, knows all too well how difficult it is to solve these historical puzzles. Anonymity abounds in this world of light and color. Paradoxically, the art form keeps the past vibrantly alive even while it hides its own history.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re always happy on the rare occasions that someone has actually signed a work,\u201d Higgins said. \u201cThere is still a lot that isn\u2019t known about stained glass, especially in American glass. Scholars are only now starting to put together a comprehensive study of the different studios. Hopefully we\u2019ll end up with a complete compendium.\u201d<\/p>\n

The work of 19th-century masters like John LaFarge and Louis Comfort Tiffany is well documented, but they are the exception. For the most part, stained glass artists worked in obscurity. In part, this is due to the fact that they were craftsmen as well as artists\u2014their creations belonged to a utilitarian culture. Provenance was not a priority, especially when so many of the images were reproductions rather than original designs.<\/p>\n

Emily Croll, director of TCNJ Art Gallery, recently brought the college\u2019s two recovered windows to Higgins for evaluation. They were in surprisingly good condition\u2014the leading on the frames held fast and the painted center panels kept their color.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pieces were the work of a competent artist but not a virtuoso,\u201d Higgins said. \u201cThey are surehanded copies of neoclassical images popular at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The artist started with the lightly tinted glass and painted the figure in dark brown lines. After firing the glass, the background blues and purples were applied in layers and fired at a lower temperature. George Sotter would later frame the image in 12 leaded green rectangles and a yellow border.<\/p>\n

Their condition is surprising when you consider what they have endured. Unlike chapel windows, serenely overhead, these pieces contended with more than the usual abuses of storm and sun. These were used. For decades, the auditorium windows slammed open and shut, then the medallions rattled against the windowpanes, hoisted and tilted against the light by admirers, briskly dusted by caretakers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOften the greatest damage is inflicted with the best intentions,\u201d Higgins explained. \u201cPeople will clean windows, give them a wipe and polish without realizing how easily the pigmentation is ruined.\u201d Death by Windex.<\/p>\n

It is difficult to precisely date TCNJ\u2019s windows. There are no telltale watermarks or signatures. Unlike other arts, the materials and techniques of stained glass work rarely change, and the images often stayed popular for decades, Higgins said. However, given the neoclassical theme and the fact that paint from the early and mid-19th century tends to break down, the goddesses likely date from around 1880\u20131910.<\/p>\n

The urge to pinpoint origins is understandable, but ultimately the value of the pieces lies in what they signify to the college, not merely how old they are.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese windows are part of the institutional history and heritage. These are the images they chose at the beginning for their surroundings,\u201d Higgins observed. \u201cThese pieces are very much of their time and reflect the aspirations and tastes of the age.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Around 1960, a group of stained glass medallions\u2014cut from windows that once provided the backdrop to students bustling in and out of the auditorium on the old Trenton campus\u2014simply vanished. This is the story of those lost artifacts, and how two of them have made their way home. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":287,"featured_media":9119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2014","category-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}