Trefoil-shaped tracery light
From the collegiate church of Romont (former chapel of St. John the Baptist), around 1340 – 1350
Artist of the Upper Rhine ( ?)
Lead came, pot-metal stained glass, grisaille, 31 x 39 cm
Vitromusée Romont, on loan from the Musée d’art et d’histoire de Fribourg, VMR 205
This stained glass window comes from the former chapel of St John the Baptist in the collegiate church of Romont, where it was grouped with two figurative panels depicting St Sylvester and St John the Evangelist (the originals are now on display in the Musée d’art et d’histoire in Fribourg), as well as the quatrefoil window exhibited opposite the entrance door of the museum. This ensemble probably dates from the late 1340s, since the chapel was built between 1344 and 1348 on the initiative of a wealthy bourgeois patron from Romont.
The trefoil is ornamented with three coiled holly or oak leaves surrounding a small blue rosette. The white leaves, emerging from the white ring around the central rosette, stand out clearly against the red background. This work bears a stylistic resemblance to stained glass windows from the Upper and Lower Rhine regions, in particular certain windows in Strasbourg Cathedral.
To make it easier to reassemble the trefoil during an earlier restoration, the glassmaker numbered the three leaf motifs with small lines near the tips of the leaves, which are still visible today. There is also evidence of a restoration by the workshop Atelier Kirsch in Fribourg after the Second World War.