Two sheets of paper, each with a design for a stucco and glass window. The designs differ only slightly in terms of the overall composition of the two windows and the colour of the glass. They are both composed of two main zones: a narrow upper zone with an Arabic inscription (see Inscription) backed with green glass, and a much larger lower zone with the main motif, consisting of nine flowers in a vase. The flowers are arranged symmetrically and depicted in a stylized manner; carnations, lilies, and hyacinths (left window only) are recognizable. The vase is flanked by a trifoliate plant on each side and framed by a semicircular arch. At the height of the carnations, petals extend into the uncarved edge area of the stucco panel. An egg-shaped element is placed in the centre of the spandrels. The flowers in a vase, the trifoliate plants, and the inscription are worked in relief against a perforated background, which is slightly recessed. The perforations are backed with coloured glass.

These designs for two stucco and glass windows to be installed in the east wall of the Studio extension of Leighton House at 12 Holland Park Road in Kensington (London) are signed by the British architect George Aitchison (1825–1910) and dated 15 February 1870. Aitchison was in charge not only of the extension, but of all five phases of construction executed on behalf of the Victorian artist and collector Frederic Leighton (1830–1896) between 1865 and 1895.

Leighton House is one of the most famous 19th-century artist’s homes, combining living, working, and exhibition spaces according to Leighton’s needs and aesthetic visions (Sweetman, 1988, pp. 189–192; Robbins/Suleman, 2005; Robbins, 2011; Anderson, 2011; Droth, 2011; Vanoli, 2012; Roberts, 2018; Gibson, 2020; Robbins, 2023). Leighton’s studio-house reflects the exotic taste of the time (Walkley, 1994, pp. 52–56), which finds close parallels in the now-lost studio of the British painter Frank Dillon (1832–1908). Dillon, who visited Cairo on several occasions in the 1850s – 1870s, recreated a Cairene interior with wall tiles, wooden furnishings, and two stucco and glass windows in his studio in Kensington (Conway, 1882, p. 196; Walkley, 1994, p. 70), as attested by a wood engraving published in the second volume of Georg Ebers’s Aegypten in Bild und Wort (Ebers, 1880, p. 96, see IG_117).

Although executed almost a decade before the famous Arab Hall (1877–1881), the Studio extension of Leighton House, constructed 1869–1870, can nevertheless be seen as a prelude to the Arab-style interior that was to follow. While Leighton was familiar with Islamic art and architecture through his travels to Sicily, Algeria, Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Spain, and Morocco, Aitchison was acquainted with Cairo, among other Islamic cities, where he examined traditional houses. According to contemporary sources, Leighton acquired various stucco and glass windows during his travels to Cairo (1868) and Damascus (1873) (see for instance Anon., 1880; Wright, 1896; Rhys, 1900). Unfortunately, the Egyptian windows were damaged during shipping (Rhys, 1900, p. 100), something that apparently happened on other occasions (see for instance IG_43). The glass fell off the stucco lattice and only part of it could be reused in the replica installed in the west wall of the Arab Hall (IG_56). All other windows had to be filled with ‘English imitations’ (Rhys, 1900, p. 100).

From these sources, we can conclude that initially it was planned to integrate original qamarīyāt in the Studio extension. However, damage occasioned during transport forced the patron and architect to change the plans and to use replicas made in Britain. Due to Aitchison’s first-hand knowledge of stucco and glass windows (Purdon Clarke & Hayter Lewis, 1881, pp. 173–174; Aitchison, 1904, p. 57), his designs have close similarities to traditional qamarīyāt. They are both composed of two main zones: an upper zone with the Arabic inscriptions, yā Allāh (‘O God’) and yā Muḥammad (‘O Muḥammad’) respectively, and a lower zone with the flowers-in-a-vase motif. Both designs have only minor differences compared with windows from Egypt. Nevertheless, the inscription backed with green instead of yellow glass and the perforations with coloured instead of clear glass, as well as the way in which the petals extend into the uncarved edge area of the stucco panel, reveal the hands of a Western designer.

Aitchison seems to have been involved intensively with stucco and glass windows and their execution in Britain at this time, as attested by a design for the Knoyle Schools in Semley (Wiltshire) conserved at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) attests. In this design (RIBA69211), also dated 1870, he envisaged the crowning element of a three-lancet window with the flower-in-a-vase motif, which clearly shows Aitchison’s familiarity with the foreign vocabulary, although, in this case, he translated the Islamic prototypes much more freely than in the two designs for the Studio extension.

The two replicas IG_58 and IG_59 were made on the basis of the designs discussed here. While the windows follow the designs very closely in terms of iconography and style, they deviate in some places from the planned colour scheme.