This poignant masterpiece is considered by many to be the finest window in Canada, and one of the most powerful war memorials anywhere.
The illustrious Irish glass master Wilhelmina Geddes spent four years creating this astonishing tribute to the dead of the “Great War”, better known as World War One. It is referred to as “The Ottawa Window” by international scholars.
In the lower panels, mothers, sisters, and lovers fill the scene with wailing grief, while cynical old men snooze on.
The window was commissioned in 1916 by Queen Victoria’s “favorite son” Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, Canada’s Governor General at the time. Widely regarded as ‘one of the artistic triumphs of the 20th century’, the window was revealed at St Bartholomew’s in 1919 by HRH the Prince of Wales.
Globe and Mail Article, April 2022
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