RHEIMS CATHEDRAL

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 5, 7 January 1928, Page 22

RHEIMS CATHEDRAL

TO RECEIVE NEW GLASS WINDOWS. The work of restoring stained glass windows in the famous Cathedral of Kheims has been delegated to the family of Jacques Simon since the fifteenth century. Simon is completing the restoration of the nineteenth of the splendid thirteenth century windows of the cathedral destroyed during the war. Designs of tho windows made by bis father in 1880 are used as a basis of replacements when storms broke sections of the precious glass. Bits of broken glass are the modern artist's chief guide to duplication of colours for the windows. Although his father's designs are in colour, Simon has studied fragments of the original glass wherever possible in an effort to copy, a3 closely as modern methods can, the rich colouring of the ancient work. Simon works in a studio especially equipped for the Rheims Cathedral task. Restoration of the windows is his life work. Of the thirty-nine windows in the church only six were spared by war devastation. Tho slight restoration of these six was early accomplished. Tho other eleven which he lias done had to be restored in whole or part. Tlio remaining work is the most serious and complicated.