Four of the windows at Saint James Church were produced in the Royal Bavarian Stained Glass Manufactory, Munich, in the mid-19th century. This glassworks was established by King Ludwig I in 1827, and continued to produce glass of high quality well into the early 20th century, under he guidance of F.X. Zettler. Together with his major competitor, Franz Mayer of the Royal Art Institute, these stained-glass artists developed the so-called "Munich style" of expert painting on relatively large glass panels (as opposed to the medieval technique of smaller pieces of colored glass held in a leaded framework, later adapted and modified by the great american designer L.C. Tiffany).
Most examples of the Munich style in the United States date from after the turn of the century, but the windows at Saint James Church are remarkably early, due to the personal connection one of its founding members had with the homeland. Gustav Schwab, son of the great German poet and scholar of the same name, was the American agent for the North German Lloyd Steamship Line, and settled in the Bronx in the 1850s; his home is the present site of the Bronx Community College (formerly the NYU campus). Schwab joined the parish of Saint James in 1858. When the present church was built in 1864-1865, Schawb endowed it a set of four superb windows from the Royal Bavarian establishment. (Schwab was also a benefactor of numerous other New York institutions, including the "German Hospital" — now Lenox Hill Hospital — and was very active in civic affairs. To Saint James Church he was an honored member and leader, and when he died in 1888, Saint James honored his memory with an exceptional early example of the stained glass work of Louis C. Tiffany: The Last Supper.
The windows that Schwab commissioned for the church sanctuary portrayed the four evangelists, the Patron Saint James together with an angel holding the sword as a symbol of his martyrdom, and a window portraying the healing of the man by the Jerusalem Temple's Beautiful Gate (Acts 3). This latter window is a memorial to another Saint James member of note, Dr. George P. Cammann, the inventor of the modern binaural stethescope — an invention for which he refused to secure a patent on the grounds that the contribution made to science and health was more than ample compensation.
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Saints Luke and John
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Saints Matthew and Mark
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Saints John and Peter
and the man at the Beautiful Gate |
| Below are close-up views of Dr. Cammann's stethoscope, courtesy of Dr. Eric Rackow | |
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Now where, you might well ask, is Saint James? Thereby hangs a tale, also connected with the Schwab family. Here is a photograph of the church interior (one of the few) from about 1910:
And here is an image (also from Christmastide) from 2001:
As you can see, the central window has been replaced with a carved and mosaic reredos. In fact, the window is still there, and is visible from the outside of the church, but impossible to appreciate since light does not shine through it! (Part of Saint James building plan is to have the window professionaly removed, restored, and placed on display with proper lighting in the church interior.)
Now anyone who knows anything about church furnishing knows that there would be quite an outcry at any such radical change in the furnishings of the church. In this case, however, the change was made harmoniously, as the marble and mosaic reredos was commissioned in 1921 as a memorial to Gustav Schwab's daughter Henrietta. The reredos itself was executed by American artist Edmund L. Ellis, who was also a member of the congregation (who also designed the electric light fixrtures in the church when they were installed about the same time. Ellis is also connected to the firm of Tiffany and Co., through his father, who was an early partner of Charles Tiffany.)
Saint James is justly proud of this beautiful stained glass, and the Tiffany windows which offer a perfect complement and render the church a true archive of stained glass styles of the 19th century.