Angel of Faith

Commissioned by Ada Ayers, this pair of Tiffany windows was designed as a memorial to her husband Harry Ayers, the son of the prominent former South Australian premier and mine owner, Sir Henry Ayers, and to their children who hadn’t lived to adulthood. Notably, the two Tiffany windows are the only pieces made especially for Australia. Installed in St Paul’s Church in Pulteney Street, Adelaide, in 1909, the windows were later removed when the church was deconsecrated in 1983.

The Tiffany Glass Company was established in 1885 and went on to become a leader in the design and manufacture of art glass during the art nouveau and art deco periods. Louis Comfort Tiffany was renowned for a unique approach to glassmaking and for introducing innovations to the centuries-old stained glass technique. Tiffany glass is particularly celebrated for its complex nuanced colour, achieved through two main approaches, the first being the use of opalescent glass, which is created by layering different colours and thicknesses, a process that adds a heightened sense of texture. Tiffany’s second innovation was his development of the ‘favrile’ technique in 1892, whereby glass of different colours was mixed when hot, creating the recognisable iridescence of Tiffany glass. These techniques in combination enabled the creation of finer, more detailed, stained glass, which utilised the subtle painterly gradations of colour characteristic of the art nouveau aesthetic.