Spring

Art Historical Context

Created around 1873–85 by the firm of Daniel Cottier, this luminous stained-glass panel personifies Spring as a graceful female figure accompanied by lambs, flowers, and tender green leaves. Measuring just over four feet tall, the window was designed for an American interior, reflecting the period’s growing taste for richly colored domestic decoration. Cottier, a Scottish-born designer who established studios in New York and elsewhere, brought European expertise in glassmaking to the United States during the Aesthetic Movement. The medium itself—leaded and stained glass—allowed artists to combine translucent color with intricate leading, turning ordinary light into a living element of the room. Panels such as this one often formed part of larger decorative schemes in homes and public buildings, celebrating nature’s renewal while demonstrating advanced craftsmanship. The Met’s example, given by the Guard family, preserves both the technical brilliance and the gentle optimism of late-nineteenth-century American design.

About the Artist

Daniel Cottier & Company|Daniel Cottier (American|British, Scottish) · |1838 –9999 |1891

|British, Glasgow, Scotland 1838–1891 Jacksonville, Florida