Visiting Robinson College on a sculpture trail on Wednesday we slipped into the chapel. Here’s an extract from the College’s web site.
‘In the side chapel … the small window is by John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens and is made up of five layers of glass. The window is known as “The Beginning and the End” (also known as “The Epiphany” and “The Adoration of the 3 Kings”). John Piper is recorded as saying, “There is a small devotional chapel with a window of stained glass of modest size, which shows the Virgin and Child and the Magi bringing gifts. This scene is set above The Sleeping Beasts of Paganism*, and in the lowest section are the first and last acts of the Christian story – Adam and Eve with the Serpent to the left, the Last Supper to the right. My designs, with fullsize cartoons, were all interpreted in glass by the Reyntiens studio at Beaconsfield with their usual sensibility and brio. The inspiration for this design was a carved stone tympanum in the Romanesque village church at Neuilly-en-Donjon (Allier) in central France.” Christ is seen lower left washing the feet of the disciples. *This has also been seen as a depiction of “the lion and the lamb”.