This is a guest blog post by Rebecca Dawson, a rising senior studying American History and Cultural & Historic Preservation, Salve Regina University. Rebecca is a 2025 John E. McGinty Fellow (Salve Regina University) in partnership with the NHS Buchanan Burnham Summer Scholars program.
In Newport, Rhode Island, some of the United States’ most sophisticated Gilded Age stained glass survives in churches, chapels, mansions, and private homes throughout the city. With a plethora of pieces produced by renowned artist John La Farge (1835-1910) in the late nineteenth century, Newport’s stained glass provides a jewel-toned backdrop to one of the city’s most formative eras.
Born in New York City in 1835, John La Farge rose to artistic prominence in the mid-nineteenth century, focusing his efforts primarily on painting and sketching. In 1859, La Farge relocated to Newport, where he began studying artistic techniques with William Morris Hunt (1824-1879), a renowned American artist and the brother of the famed architect Richard Morris Hunt (1827-1895). He eventually purchased a home on Kay Street, where he spent the summers with his wife and children.[1] La Farge was inspired by Newport’s landscape, and he produced numerous paintings of the city’s coast until he began to explore the potential stained glass had as an artistic medium. By 1880, the artist believed that working with glass was ultimately easier than using oil paint, and thus his career was transformed.[2]
Photograph of the La Farge skylight now located in The Breakers. 2023.009, James Yarnall Collection, Newport Historical Society.
The technical details of La Farge’s stained glass found throughout Newport and the rest of the United States was revolutionary; he elaborated on medieval methods of glasswork with a modernized approach. The artist pioneered a method of layering pieces of colored glass, creating a three-dimensional effect in his work. La Farge also incorporated his skills as a painter into each piece, as faces and limbs were usually hand-painted to engender realism.[3] He introduced opalescent glass to his artistry; this medium is made of translucent, milky glass with streaks of color, which at the time had yet to be used outside of industrial contexts.[4] Opalescent glass softened the natural light within a space, gently illuminating it with colorful hues. Within his glasswork, La Farge included brightly colored cabochons, or polished, unfaceted gems, which added a vibrant pop to his work, contributing to the unique visual effect of each piece.
Photograph of the Vanderbilt’s Dining Room in New York City, c. 1883. The La Farge glasswork is visible as a skylight. Courtesy of Henry La Farge’s “John La Farge’s Work in the Vanderbilt Houses.”
At least thirty-six of La Farge’s windows survive in the “city-by-the-sea” with perhaps the most viewed being the third-floor ceiling at The Breakers.[5] Located directly above the grand staircase, this stained glass once decorated Cornelius Vanderbilt II’s mansion on the corner of Fifty-Seventh Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City. The glasswork acted as a skylight in Vanderbilt’s dining room and was installed in 1882.[6] La Farge had signed a contract valued at over $100,000 to work on the New York home, pointing to the immense value attributed to his craftsmanship.[7] Even with the hefty price point, the Vanderbilt family had reservations about the ceiling; the glass as a source of natural light failed to successfully illuminate the dining room and the piece itself seemed too large and unnatural in the space. Vanderbilt decided to relocate the glass into his New York City mansion’s ‘Watercolor Room,’ following an expansion of the home.[8] By 1894, however, the Watercolor Room no longer boasted any stained glass; it is inferred that by this time, the piece had been removed and shipped up north to Newport. The Vanderbilt summer home, The Breakers, had finished construction in 1895. By then, La Farge’s stained glass had been installed above the Newport mansion’s staircase. The artist and his assistant, Francis Augustus Lathrop, recycled a multitude of panels from the Vanderbilt home in New York to craft the 20’-by-3’ ceiling visible today.[9] Decorated with sage green, white, and carnation pink shapes, the stained glass in The Breakers continues to remain one of the mansion’s most admirable features.
Center panel of the La Farge triptych located within Our Lady of Mercy Chapel. 2023.009, James Yarnall Collection, Newport Historical Society.
The Breakers was not the only Newport mansion to feature a work by La Farge. The Caldwell estate, which stood on the corner of Kay and Ayrault Streets, was home to at least thirteen La Farge windows.[10] The large home was owned by William Shakespeare Caldwell until his death in 1874, after which the estate passed to Mamie and Lina Caldwell, his daughters.[11] Between 1890 and 1891, the house underwent a large expansion, including the installation of La Farge’s ecclesiastical glasswork in the Caldwell chapel. La Farge’s work is made up of a lifesize triptych depicting Mary, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and St. John the Evangelist from Christian iconography. These panels greatly illuminate La Farge’s artistry; the three-dimensional effect of the interlacing glass panes and the colorful contrasts they exhibit greatly enhanced the chapel at the Caldwell estate. Within the sisters’ home stood the only privately consecrated Catholic worship space in Newport at the time.[12] By 1931, the Caldwell sisters had both been deceased for over two decades, and the home was sold for demolition. The stained glass pieces, however, survived; St. Patrick’s Church in Fall River purchased the panes in 1932 for $35,000 to install in the neighboring convent.[13] La Farge’s windows remained in Massachusetts until 2004, when that convent, too, was set to be torn down. Through the leadership of Sister Therese Antone, RSM, Salve Regina University acquired the glasswork, thus bringing La Farge’s work back to Newport. In the Our Lady of Mercy Chapel, the university’s faith center, thirteen of La Farge’s stained glass panels once owned by the Caldwell sisters now adorn Salve Regina’s worship space. Their placement pays homage to their original purpose in the Caldwell chapel.[14]
La Farge’s decorative windows, Newport Congregational Church. Courtesy of Jack Heller. 2025.006, Newport Historical Society.
Occupying the corner of Spring Street and Pelham Street, Newport Congregational Church stands as a testament to La Farge’s artistry. Now known as the La Farge Arts Center, the historic building is home to nineteen opalescent glass panes originally installed between 1879 and 1881.[15] Rather than designing specific subjects such as those adorning the Our Lady of Mercy Chapel, La Farge created decorative windows that emulated similar themes to Islamic design, including odes to mosaics and vibrant stones.[16] In 1879, the artist received $3,500 in return for his work, which included both the stained glass and the painting adorning the interior of the church.[17] Newport Congregational Church stood as an active parish until the early twenty-first century, and now the building acts as an educational center for fine arts and historic preservation. The La Farge Restoration Fund was established in 1995 and has diligently worked to conserve the glasswork at the historic site. Within the last decade, a handful of the church’s windows were carefully restored by glass artists Cynthia Welton and Tim O’Neill of New Mexico, thus prolonging La Farge’s contributions to Newport’s art scene.[18]
Baker Memorial Window, Channing Memorial Church. Courtesy of Jack Heller. 2025.006, Newport Historical Society.
Just up the street from the La Farge Arts Center, the Channing Memorial Church on Pelham Street is home to a plethora of the artist’s opalescent stained glass panels. Many of the church’s windows were crafted in memoriam of prominent individuals, such as Mr. Richard Baker Jr. (1819-1875) and Rev. Barnabas Bates (1787-1854). Historians claim the Baker Memorial Window within the church was one of La Farge’s largest and grandest commissions, measuring at twenty-five feet high and fifteen feet wide.[19] The triptych window includes “one of the finest figures La Farge has ever drawn,” and represents Psalm 23, stating “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.”[20] The cost of the Baker Window was estimated between $6,000 and $7,000 prior to its installation in 1882.[21] The Rev. Bates Window honors Mary and St. Barnabas; each figure follows La Farge’s typical artistry style, with painted faces and glass clothing and backgrounds. Beneath the subjects, a unique method was employed by La Farge: a ‘confetti glass’ floor. This marvel was created by placing colorful glass pieces into a liquid white base, creating a kaleidoscopic effect.[22] The windows are still located in situ at the Channing Memorial Church.
John La Farge’s glasswork remains an important addition to the overall artistic culture of Newport. Ongoing restoration work is essential for the survival of these colored panels; with the employment of ample preservation techniques, the city’s churchgoers and tourists alike can continue to enjoy La Farge’s work as it was originally intended.
[1] James Yarnall, “John La Farge’s ‘Paradise Valley Period’,” Newport History 55, 185 (1982): 1, 3.
[2] Julie Sloan and James Yarnall, “Art of an Opaline Mind: The Stained Glass of John La Farge,” American Art Journal 24, 1 (1992): 5.
[3] James Yarnall “La Farge’s Baker Memorial Window,” Newport History 58, 200 (1985): 102.
[4] James Yarnall, “John La Farge’s Windows for the Caldwell Sisters of Newport,” Rhode Island History 64, 2 (2006): 31.
[5] Thirteen windows can be counted in the Our Lady of Mercy Chapel, one in The Breakers, nineteen in the Newport Congregational Church, two in the Channing Memorial Church, and one in the Newport Historical Society’s Collections. La Farge windows might adorn private homes throughout Newport, but their number is unknown.
[6] Henry La Farge, “John La Farge’s Work in the Vanderbilt Houses,” American Art Journal 16, 4 (1984): 46; Yarnall, “John La Farge’s Windows for the Caldwell Sisters,” 46.
[7] Henry Adams, John La Farge (New York: Abbeville Press, 1987), 200.
[8] La Farge, “John La Farge’s Work in the Vanderbilt Houses,” 50.
[9] James Yarnall, “Souvenirs of Splendor: John La Farge and the Patronage of Cornelius Vanderbilt II,” American Art Journal 25, 1 (1994): 71.
[10] Ernest Jolicoeur and Anthony Mangieri, Muse and Mercy: Exploring Fine and Decorative Arts at Salve Regina University (Newport, RI: Salve Regina University, 2022), 124.
[11] Yarnall, “John La Farge’s Windows for the Caldwell Sisters,” 32.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid., 35.
[14] Jolicoeur and Mangieri, Muse and Mercy, 124.
[15] Yarnall, “John La Farge’s Windows for the Caldwell Sisters,” 40.
[16] Sloan and Yarnall, “Art of an Opaline Mind,” 8.
[17] Ibid., 39.
[18] John Pantalone, “Restoration of La Farge Church to Take Time and Money,” Newport This Week (Newport, RI), September 14, 2023.
[19] Providence Journal (Providence, Rhode Island), September 8, 1882.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Newport Daily News (Newport, Rhode Island), September 15, 1881, MS.081 Box 11, Folder 7, Newport Historical Society (NHS) Collections.
[22] G1880.24, MS.081 Box 11, Folder 7, NHS Collections.