Restoration of stained glass windows at the Hospital del Niño Jesús in Madrid
Restoration of four pointed lancet stained glass windows showing the thematic images of “The Holy Family crossing the Nile”, “The Holy Family with Saint Elizabeth and the Child Saint John the Baptist”, “Jesus among the doctors” and “Jesus the carpenter in the workshop of Saint Joseph” from the stained glass group in the chapel of the Hospital del Niño Jesús
Restoration of stained glass windows at the Hospital del Niño Jesús in Madrid
The biblical-themed stained glass windows in the chapel of the Hospital del Niño Jesús were created at the end of the 1881th century (11) by the German workshop “Casa Mayer. The set is made up of 10 stained glass windows, XNUMX in the shape of a pointed lancet and a central rose window in the shape of an oculus. The intervention affected four of these windows that presented various pathologies, such as panel buckling, moisture leaks, dirt and paint and plaster splashes, as well as glass and lead fractures and exterior carbonation. The works have involved cleaning, recovering losses, creating exterior protection and a renewed support system for the panels.
The windows The Holy Family crossing the Nile River, The Holy Family with Saint Elizabeth y San Juan Bautista child, Jesus among the doctors y Jesus the carpenter in the workshop of Saint Joseph They are part of the set of eleven stained glass windows that decorate the chapel of the Hospital del Niño Jesús, with ten of them being shaped like a pointed lancet and another, on the feet of the nave, an oculus.
The decorative theme begins in the central oculus, dedicated to the biblical passage of Matthew 19: 14 Let the children come to me in which the adult Christ appears surrounded by children. In the rest of the stained-glass windows, four of which have been the object of restoration in the intervention described here, the Prefiguration on the redemption of the Child God, The Presentation in the temple, The Birth, The adoration of the shepherds, The adoration of the Magi, The flight to Egypt, Child Jesus among the doctors, Sagrada Familia crossing the Nile river, Sagrada Familia with Saint Elizabeth and Saint John the Baptist child, The workshop of Nazareth or Jesus carpenter in the workshop of Saint Joseph.
The stained-glass windows, with a careful technique, are leaded with mass-blown glass, richly painted with grisaille, carnations and yellows of high quality silver and "plaqué" glasses etched in acid and mounted on wood carpentry seated in the factory with reinforcing rods tied with wire in the upper and lower panels.
The church is consecrated to the Virgen de las Victorias. It has decorative elements of great interest that the architect himself seems to have taken care of personally, including the stained glass windows that decorate his daughter. The origin of the Hospital del Niño Jesús dates back to the asylum created by the National Association for Homeless Children in 1876 and the promotion of Doña María del Carmen Hernández Espinosa, Duchess of Santoña, very committed to social aspects. The construction of the building was carried out between 1881 and 1885, being the work of the architect Francisco Jareño y Alarcón.
The hospital is considered one of the landmarks of the brick architecture of Madrid in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He won a Gold Medal at the exhibitions in Antwerp (1886), Paris (1886), London (1887), Vienna (1887) and Barcelona (1888) for which his originality, beauty and functionality were recognized, being also the prototype of hospitals and asylums that were built later in Madrid.
The Hospital is the owner of numerous works of art, several of them of important historical-artistic value. The inventory of the assets of its movable heritage, many of them donated by the Duchess of Santoña at the end of the 1881th century, is made up of paintings, sculptures, religious and civil furniture, goldsmiths, various objects of pharmaceutical utility ... Among these goods, it stands out the collection of stained glass windows that was made coinciding with the construction of the hospital by the Mayer House in 1881, several of them being signed and dated in 1.881: "Mayer & Cº / Munich & London", on the lower lateral edge of four windows; "Year XNUMX", on the lower side edge of two stained glass windows.
This collection was probably the first project carried out by the Casa Mayer in Madrid and also one of the first, together with those of the church of Los Jerónimos by the glass painter JB Anglade (glass painter), which follow the “neo” trends of restitution. These will be followed a few years later by the magnificent stained glass windows of the Bank of Spain (1889), also from the Casa Mayer, to which the stained glass windows of the Hospital served as a letter of introduction. Finally, almost at the end of the century, those of the Royal Academy of the Language in Madrid (1893) by GP Dragant were held.
Casa Mayer was one of the most prestigious firms in the production of stained glass. Created in the mid-XNUMXth century in Germany, it had its headquarters in Munich and a branch in London. Its activity is situated following the “neo” currents that tried to recover the architecture of other times, imitating their architectural styles. The stained glass window, as a decorative art at the service of architecture, demonstrated a great boom in the historicist construction of the late nineteenth century. The decline of this company was due to its lack of adaptation to the new avant-gardes. In this chronological framework, a large number of new stained glass windows are carried out for different projects in civil and religious buildings, carried out by numerous national and foreign workshops in Spanish cities such as Barcelona, Irún, Burgos, Málaga or Vitoria.
La Vidriería has in recent Madrid architecture a profuse presence of remarkable quality and practically unknown, with works, which for their quality constitute a historical reference for the Spanish historical heritage, confirmed through the inventory work that was carried out by the General Management of Heritage of the Community of Madrid during several campaigns carried out between 1989 and 1994. The result of which was the publication in 1996 from this book's address Stained glass windows in Madrid: from Art Nouveau to Art Deco whose author is Victor Nieto Alcaide.
Image gallery
Jesús carpintero at the San José workshop RESTORED
The Holy Family with Saint Elizabeth and Saint John the Baptist Child
Jesus among the doctors RESTORED
Restoration
From 1992, different actions have been carried out on the inventoried furniture of the hospital. The stained glass set of the church required an integral action, due to various problems. In 2009, the restoration works began, which began with a specific intervention on the rosette, but it had the objective of restoring the whole in the following years.
Although in general their state of conservation was acceptable, they presented problems that could lead to severe deterioration. The fundamental pathologies were the buckling of panels due to lack of fixation, extreme leaks of humidity, dirt derived from condensation and splashes of paint and plaster from maintenance interventions. Fractures and breaks of some glass gauges, breakage of lead solders and exterior carbonation and loss of perimeter putties were also observed in a timely manner. Furthermore, the external protection was poor and dangerous for the glass surface.
For all these reasons, the action carried out in the stained-glass windows has had two fundamental objectives: to maintain all the original elements of the stained-glass windows and to improve the future conservation, making the new introduced elements go unnoticed.
In the first place, the restoration of the stained glass itself was carried out, started by the cleaning of glass and grisaille, correction of buckling and landslides, consolidation of lead shells and welds, gluing of fractures, elaboration of graphic documentation, etc., aimed at correct the damage suffered in the works over time.
Second, in addition to maintaining the outer mesh, an outer protection of stainless steel and laminar glass has been made that creates an intermediate chamber that prevents condensation and the fixation of dust. This protection prevents external impacts, and if they occurred, no fragments would enter the interior.
With regard to the assembly of the panels of the stained-glass window, a frame of junctioned stainless steel has been made and, in turn, each of them has been made a perimetral bronze frame that makes them self-supporting. This peculiarity means that, in case of any contingency, they can be dismantled safely in a short time.