Stained Glass Lunette from the Cornelius Vanderbilt II House, New York

Art Historical Context

This stunning stained glass lunette, created by John La Farge 1880–82, once adorned the opulent Cornelius Vanderbilt II House on New York's Fifth Avenue. As a masterpiece from the Gilded Age, it reflects the era's lavish excess, commissioned for one of America's wealthiest families. Vanderbilt II, heir to a railroad fortune, embodied the period's grandeur, and La Farge's design—featuring mythical griffins and serpentslikely symbolized protection, power, and exotic allure, fitting for a palatial entranceway. La Farge, a trailblazing American artist, revolutionized stained glass with his invention of opalescent glass, a shimmering material that shifts colors under light without painted details. This leaded technique, assembling irregularly shaped glass pieces with molten lead strips, creates a luminous, jewel-like effect. At over five feet wide and weighing 64 pounds, the lunette's scale and vibrancy made it a showpiece of innovation, bridging medieval traditions with modern aesthetics. Today, housed in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's American Wing (gift of Mrs. Otto Heinigke, 1916), it offers a window into 19th-century American luxury and artistry. Visitors can marvel at how sunlight animates the fantastical creatures, evoking the Vanderbilt mansion's lost splendor.

About the Artist

John La Farge · 1835–1910

John La Farge (1835–1910) was born into a wealthy French émigré family in New York City, the son of John Frederick La Farge and Louisa Binsse de Saint-Victor. Educated at Jesuit institutions including Mount St. Mary's College in Maryland and St. John's College (now Fordham University), he initially pursued law but turned to art after receiving early drawing lessons from his maternal grandfather, a...