This is the exact replica replacement window, a vinyl laminate on an acrylic panel, that has taken the place of one of the Tiffany stained-glass windows that was sold to the Allentown Art Museum by United Presbyterian Church in Pottsville.
It’s taken eight-and-a-half years – which includes wading through a global pandemic – to get the job done, but it’s finally complete. Two precious, signed Tiffany stained-glass windows that adorned United Presbyterian Church in Pottsville, PA, for a century are being relocated to the Allentown Art Museum.
On April 5, the museum will unveil the windows to the public, capping a long journey for that organization as well that included a lengthy fundraising campaign plus time to refurbish the windows after they had been carefully removed from United Church.
The story begins in the fall of 2016 with Marsha Heimann, at the time the stated clerk for Lehigh Presbytery who was attending a session meeting at United Church. At this meeting, the session discussed possibly selling the Tiffany windows to raise funds to be able to fix the church building’s aging coal boiler. The very next morning Marsha was sitting in a Society of the Arts board meeting at the Allentown Art Museum where they discussed increasing their present Tiffany collection and she relayed that United Church was considering selling its two signed Tiffany windows.
Wanting to focus on local art while also supporting small towns in the area, the museum looked into the idea of buying the windows and eventually decided they would make a great exhibit. The timing was perfect, with Unted Church needing funds to improve its heating system.
“The hand of God came in,” said Al Matz, the clerk of session and head of the Buildings and Grounds Committee at United Church. “I think that’s happened a few different times for the church. The blessings have come through.”
It took more than a year to get all the contractual things completed, and the museum needed a couple of years to organize a fundraising campaign to purchase the two windows, which are valued in total in the seven-figure range. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit, halting the entire project for a few years. After the fundraising continued late in 2021, the windows were finally taken out and given to the museum in the fall of 2024, at which time they had to be shipped to Boston so they could be properly restored. In April, they will finally be displayed in the museum.
While the museum had its own timeline, it also took time to win over the congregation, convincing them that selling the windows was the right thing to do considering the repairs that were needed.
“A year or two before that, we were made an offer by one of the glass companies that had a buyer that was looking into it,” Al recalled. “What they offered to pay wasn’t that much, so we thought we would look into it further. And the sentiment of the congregation was that we really don’t want to sell the windows, being that it was going to a private collection. Because of the way it came about with Marsha and the museum, it just seemed like it was meant to be.”
Add in that the building where the Allentown Art Museum is located was formerly the First Presbyterian Church of Allentown, and it just seemed like a perfect fit and time to make the move to sell the windows. Having a museum purchase them also assured the congregation that its prized possession would be taken care of going forward.
“The big deciding factor was the museum didn’t want to just buy the windows, they wanted the memorial part of it, the history of it, the story,” Al said. “It wasn’t like we were selling the windows, we were more or less sharing them with the world.”
The history of the windows and the coal boiler reads like this: In the early 1900s, United Church was booming as it found itself in the middle of a thriving coal industry. Because many of the coal mine owners attended United Church, and thinking that coal would be a viable source for heat for many years, it installed a coal boiler in their new church building. Around the same time, some congregation members decided to purchase stained-glass windows in honor of their families, and they traveled to New York City to have them created.
Louis Comfort Tiffany, a well-known stained-glass maker, was contracted to produce two signed windows for the church. The first Tiffany window, which was inspired by Isaiah 55:1 (“Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters”), was placed in the church in 1914. It portrays a hilly woodland scene that includes a mountain stream rushing down between high treebanks. A patch of pink rhododendrons is also featured under a sunset sky.
The 23rd Psalm (“He leadeth me beside the still waters”) is the focus of the second Tiffany window, which was dedicated in 1920. The text is captured by a large river that winds from the background of hazy blue mountains through wooded landscape. Mossy rocks appear in the foreground as the river breaks away into a quiet pool surrounded by patches of purple iris, which along with the rhododendrons is a signature of Louis Tiffany. An inscription at the base of the window says it was created in memory of Sarah Ann Derr, whose son (Louis Derr) worked with Tiffany to create the window.
The replacement windows at United Church in Pottsville look identical to the Tiffany stained glass windows that adorned the sanctuary for a century.
“Their beauty is unbelievable,” Al said. “When I first came to the church 40 years ago, I thought this scene could be any place in Pennsylvania the way the stream was, especially in our area.”
The windows had been cleaned, and minor repairs were made about 15 years ago. Tempered glass sat on the outside of the Tiffany windows to protect them from the weather, so overall the windows were in good shape when they were bought by the museum.
“When they took the windows, they were very surprised at how good of shape they were for being over 100 years old,” Al remarked.
To honor the Tiffany windows, United Church had exact replicas of the windows created and placed in the spots of the originals. The craftsmanship is remarkable, making it difficult to see a difference from the originals.
“The windows actually look exactly the same as they did, except for instead of being stained glass, it’s a vinyl laminate on an acrylic panel,” Al described. “If you get within three to four feet of it, you can tell it’s not really stained glass, but if you’re more than five feet away, it pretty much looks exactly the same. The congregation was really pleased with how it came out.”
Needing to replace the coal boiler, United Church used a loan from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to install a more modern heating system in 2018. Because the museum paid the church in regular installments for several years, the church used those payments to pay off the loan in about four years.
“The museum has been fantastic to work with,” Al said. “They’ve kept us informed of everything going on with the project.”
The museum has gone to great lengths to honor the windows and their beauty. The windows will be displayed in the building at the location of the original front entrance of the First Presbyterian Church of Allentown. The display will include back lighting that fades and brightens, presenting the windows in different light to simulate different times of the day. It also makes them come alive.
“One of the beauties of these windows is they caught the sun at different angles, at different times of the day, different times of the year,” Al said. “They always looked different. Even during one of the ceremonies that we had for the blessing of the windows, we had our service in the morning and then in the afternoon the museum did a presentation about the windows, and I stopped the presentation at one point to point out to people to take notice how different they looked at that time of the day than they did earlier in the morning when the sun was at a different angle. They just seemed to sparkle so much more.”
“They are absolutely magnificent,” Marsha said, describing the windows in 2018. “At the church, to be able to see them as the sun is beginning to set, the sun comes through those windows. The sunset in the window and the bubbling brook literally become alive. You can see the motion from the reflection of the sun shining through the windows. They’re breathtaking.”
It’s been an emotional transition for the congregation but one that was ultimately the right choice for everyone involved.
“What good is their beauty if there’s not a church and a congregation to appreciate them?” Al said. “The sale of the windows has made it possible for our congregation to continue and hopefully get a whole new generation of people coming in and maybe even a rebirth of the church.
“Over the years, before this and after it, God has answered our prayers. He’s blessed our church in many ways. He seems like he might not give us all we want but he gives us what we need. His blessings are definitely felt, you just have to keep your eyes open and feel the blessings.”