Late 19th/Early 20th Century Reverse Glass Stations of the Cross in Original Frame. Antique work depicting Jesus carrying the cross in vibrant colors. 

Overall Size: 12 x 9 3/4 in. 

Sight Size: 9 1/4 x 7 in. 

#4763  

Reverse painting on glass is an art form consisting of applying paint to a piece of glass and then viewing the image by turning the glass over and looking through the glass at the image. Another term used to refer to the art of cold painting and gilding on the back of glass is “verre eglomise,” named after the French decorator Jean-Baptiste Glomy (1711-86), who framed prints using glass that had been reverse-painted. In German it is known as “Hinterglasmalerei.” It is unknown where the art form originated, as it was widely used for sacral paintings since the Middle Ages, particularly in the art of icons by the Byzantine Empire, but Chinese artists had been crafting them for thousands of years before that. During the 20th Century the original art form nearly died out, as many of the artisans who practiced the “naive” technique were wiped out by conflicts and disease, but a new method of reverse painting emerged using polymer glazing in the 1960s. One of the main challenges of creating a reverse glass painting is how layers are applied when painting. An illustration of this type is usually painted on the opposite side of the glass (the one not presented to the viewer), following an opposite succession of layers of paint, applying the front most layer first and the background layer last. This means that the final result must be well thought out before starting the piece and must be taken into account with each layer applied, a difficult task even for skilled artists with remarkable memories. The first step in a reverse glass painting is line art, with black lines that show the primary idea of the painting. The next is the adding of internal layers, with an indeterminate number needed to create the precise effect. Details and shadows are painted first, and so the background is painted last, the opposite of most techniques. The revolutionary artist Wassily Kandinsky created more than 70 reverse paintings on glass, which provided modern researchers some of the best analysis on the process. The glass used to create these pictures must be very resilient, and the technique itself likely arose specifically from a desire to cover the glass with a protective varnish, which eventually became decorative rather than just functional.