Nathaniel Hubert John WestlakeFSA (1833–1921) was a 19th-century British artist specialising in stained glass.[1]
Career
Nathaniel Westlake was born in Romsey in 1833.[2][3] He began to design for the firm of Lavers & Barraud, Ecclesiastical Designers, in 1858, and became a partner ten years later, making the firm Lavers, Barraud and Westlake, of which he became sole proprietor in 1880.[4]
The firm was then known as Lavers & Westlake.
A leading designer of the Gothic Revival movement, his works include The Vision of Beatrice (1864), commissioned for an exhibition of stained glass held at the South Kensington Museum (renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1899).[5]
In 1896, Lavers & Westlake were commissioned to reglaze two central lights in the great hall windows at Mary Datchelor Girls' School, Camberwell. The subjects were Lady Jane Grey discourses with Roger Ascham and By Industry and Perseverance, symbolising the importance of female endeavour in higher education. Other windows included On the way to Chapel, Physical Exercise, The Kindergarten and The Classroom. The windows were removed from the school in 2010 after it was converted into a series of apartments.[6]
Westlake published under the name of "Nat Hubert John Westlake".[7] He contributed an article on mosaics to the Catholic Encyclopedia.[3]
Windows and murals at the Church of the Sacred Heart, Hove. The final work before his death was the stained glass above the doorway on the southwest side.[13]
The triptych behind the altar at St John the Divine, Richmond, London, completed in 1908. Westlake also painted the sanctuary ceiling, which illustrates passages from the Book of Revelation, chapter 14, and stations of the cross which are now missing.
A souvenir of the exhibition of Christian art, held at Mechlin, in September, mdccclxiv, [1864] in a series of sketches, with descriptive letterpress (1866)
Via Crucis, the way of the Cross in fourteen stations [plates]. (1876)
A History of Design in Painted Glass, Volume 1 (1881)
A History of Design in Painted Glass. Four volumes (1891–1894)
An elementary history of design in mural painting principally during the Christian era (1901)
History of Design in Mural Painting from the Earliest Times to the Twelfth Century: From the second until the twelfth centuries AD In two volumes. (1905) J. Parker, London[19]
The dance: historic illustrations of dancing from 3300 B.C. to 1911 A.D., by an antiquary. (1911)
Gallery
St Mary Magdalene, Enfield
Ceiling, St John the Divine, Richmond
Triptych, St John the Divine, Richmond
St Charles Borromeo Catholic Church, high altar reredos
^ abMartin Harrison FSA Nathaniel Westlake and the Stained Glass of Mary Datchelor Girls' School. Published by the Clothworkers' Company, The Dorset Press, Dorchester England 2010