Seventeenth-century Flemish Roundel,
Canterbury Cathedral Stained Glass Studios, Canterbury

I conserved a seventeenth-century Flemish roundel named ‘November’ depicting the Labours of the Months with the sign of the zodiac during my placement at Canterbury Cathedral. The panel had lost a significant area of the glass - the face and upper body of one of the figures - and an infill would need to be decided upon. In the past, an infill had been made for the top right-hand corner of the roundel. This area had lost its enamel and the white appearance of the tree was jarring, but the later addition was kept nevertheless.

The design of the panel could not be obtained through literature or contact with experts in the Netherlands. Using the surrounding glass as a guide, various infills were created with greater or less detail, with or without enamels, to try different options. With the fact that a roundel is created to be viewed at close-quarters, it was decided that, although ethically the most correct answer, an infill without detail (only a shadow to fill the space) would not suffice. The final decision was to make a monochrome infill (to differentiate it from original glass) decorated using the details in the surrounding glass, such as the logs and the shape of the trousers. The glass breaks were edge-bonded, the roundel was back-plated and the missing enamel of the later addition (tree – top right-hand corner) was added to the back-plate to close the eye-catching effect of the enamel loss.