Hartwell Memorial Window
Preserving and promoting appreciation of the arts.
The mission of The Antiquarian Society is to foster and promote charitable, educational, literary and research activities in the decorative arts, and to make gifts to charitable organizations which preserve and promote the appreciation of the arts. The purposes include acquiring, preserving and exhibiting objects of historical importance pertaining to art; distributing funds for the purchase thereof to organizations that qualify as exempt organizations, including the Art Institute of Chicago; expanding the interest and knowledge regarding such art objects through exhibitions, lectures, and educational programs and engaging in any and all other activities that support; and promote the decorative arts.
The Hartwell Memorial Window
(Light in Heaven and Earth)
On October 9, 2018 the Antiquarian Society Board of Directors voted to contribute support funding, with a leadership gift, toward the Arts of the Americas department’s acquisition, “Light in Heaven and Earth,” a Tiffany Studios landscape window of many types of richly-colored leaded glass. The window was created in 1917 by Agnes Northrop, the principal landscape window designer at Tiffany Studios, and was one of the “most glorious windows ever produced by Tiffany Studios” standing 23 feet high by 16 feet wide.
The placement in the Art Institute is the first object visitors experience when ascending the prominent Woman’s Board Grand Staircase. Of the window depicting a distant view of Mount Chocorua, one of the peaks of the White Mountains in New Hampshire, it has been said, “it will become an immediate icon of the Art Institute and the City of Chicago, on par with the greatest works of the museum.”
Thank you, Antiquarian Society members, for your generosity! It is your commitment to the goals of our society which made this gift possible!