This is one of my favorite cities in all of Bretagne, and glad not far from me visit often, I have written several posts on it and many on the Cathedral but found me older pictures from my cd roms ,not in my blog yet and they should be, Quimper is in dept 29 of Finistére in my lovely Bretagne, Therefore here is my take on the Cathedral Saint Corentin of Quimper, stained glass windows !!!Hope you enjoy it as I.
The Cathédrale Saint Corentin is a jewel of a monument in beautiful celtic Quimper. We love to come here and it is always grand. This is a must to visit, much revered by all ; it is a masterpiece so much impossible for me to concentrate on every detail but I give you some more and you are welcome to come. The Saint Corentin Cathedral was built on the site of previous worship place of the 9C and 11C, its construction was decided in 1239 by Bishop Radwan, the ducal chancellor of Pierre de Dreux, who came from Ile de France. It is the time of the radiant Gothic, where Chartres, Reims or Amiens are built. It is necessary to wait for the advent of the Duke Jean V so that at the beginning of the 15C ends the first part of the work, the choir which is covered with a cross vault of warheads and colored with painted ribs and stained glass with silver yellow. In the second quarter of the 15C only are undertaken, from the west end, first the towers and the porch, then the nave. After 1460 this is grafted onto the choir via the transept, which is surmounted by a 16 meters central steeple. The builders covered it with a stone vault, coated with ochre and traced to the imitation of a brick assemblage; They chiseled the window mullions and, in the time of Duchess and Queen Anne of Brittany/France,filled them with stained-glass windows.
The stained glass represents the prodigy. The main characters are: the perjurer, the friend who had entrusted him with his fortune for the time he would stay in the Holy Land ; the wife of the pilgrim from Palestine; the bishop who conferred the oath; the two seated figures are the lay judges who, due to the absence of witnesses, declared themselves incompetent. Above the altar: the Child Jesus, at the moment of his birth, is adored by his Mother, by the angels and by Saint Joseph who prostrates himself. Above the confessional: the Adoration of the Magi.There are wonderful stained glass windows depicting Saint-Guennolé and Saint-Ronan, Saint-Pol-Aurélien, and Saint-Yves, Sublime indeed !
The stained glass windows of cathedral make up a particularly rich as a whole, All the low canopies were lost, and as for the high canopies, a large part of them is, at least in part, old, but the restorations carried out since the 19C, make the distinction between the ancient and modern elements difficult. Most of the old canopies preserved, at least in part, date back to the work of the 15C. All the stained glass windows of the upper parts were deposited in 1942, then the rest in the years 1950-1960, The upper canopies were executed around 1415–1417, while the vaults of the high choir were in the process of completion. The iconographic program remains readable: the axial bay was a ordeal around which saints sheltered by figurative architecture niches, accompanied by cleric or laity donors were aligned. These donors, from the Cornish aristocracy except for the stained glass windows offered by Duke Jean V of Brittany and his wife Jeanne de France, chose their saint, from where repetitions in the program ; In addition, they had initially made their coat of arms appeared in the tympan of the canopies.
The Calvary of the Axe canopy as well as the two immediately lateral, damaged windows, were replaced in 1856. In 1866, the canopies of straight spans were restored. After this restoration work, the stained glass windows were replaced with copies of the old ones, some of which were kept at the cathedral. The canopies were the subject of a new restoration in 1989–1993 for the North and South canopies. The canopies of the transept and the nave were executed at the end of the 15C, after the completion of the construction of these parts of the cathedral, probably after 1493 and the installation of the vaults of the nave. One of them, on the eastern wall of the south arm of the transept, bears an inscription with the date of 1496;those representing the resurrected Christ and the charity of Saint Martin, the latter perhaps from a low glass roof in the chapels of the nave. The iconographic choice of a long series of portraits of saints under architectural canopy was maintained, except in the berries , the latter being a re-use coming from a low window. Despite the uniqueness of the iconographic program, the transept and the nave are distinguished from the choir by the colors of the stained glass, much more sustained at the end of the 15C due to the evolution of tastes and the stained glass technique. Some canopies have stylistic similarities with other stained glass windows of the time.
Almost all of the low canopies are after the French revolution some windows were closed, and others which had had old canopies, had seen them replaced by white glass from the 17C. The Saint Corentin Cathedral own today stores of several renowned glass painters from the second half of the 19C such as Julien-Léopold Lobin, Auguste Steinheil, Émile Hirsch, Eugène-Stanislas Oudinot, Georges-Claudius Lavergne … More recent orders complete this set: Hubert de Sainte -Marie in the 1950s, then Jean-Jacques Gruber in 1980 for the stained glass window of baptism, Josette Mahuzier and Anna Stein in the last two decades of the 20C.
The official Parish Quimper on the Saint Corentin’s Cathedral :https://www.quimpersaintcorentin.com/cathedrale-st-corentin-eglises-et-chapelles/histoire/
The city of Quimper on the Cathedral: https://en.quimper.bzh/670-saint-corentin-cathedral.htm
The Quimper tourist office on the Cathedral: https://www.quimper-tourisme.bzh/en/cathedrale-saint-corentin/
The Bretagne region tourist office on Quimper: https://www.brittanytourism.com/destinations/the-10-destinations/quimper-cornouaille/quimper/
There you go folks, another gem in my lovely Bretagne, and gorgeous Quimper. Again, hope you have enjoy reading this latest post on the magnificent Cathedral Saint Corentin of Quimper, stained glass windows !!! as I.
And remember, happy travels ,good health, and many cheers to all !!!
Paris1972-Versailles2003 