Artistic Traditions Artistic Traditions Missouri stained glass windows illustrate the development of American stained glass. Much of the earliest stained glass in the state was imported from New York or Pennsylvania, two states important in the early history of American stained glass production.
Opalescent glass is a thick, rolled glass in which the colors are streaked and marbled.
It was the most common type of stained glass in America in the nineteenth century. Usually these windows were not figured, although they did often contain small medallions with religious symbols. The very large Tiffany and Lamb companies both created figured windows using opalescent glass, as did some Missouri companies. Francis Street Methodist Church in St. Joseph has a very large figured opalescent glass window of the Presentation . The window's design was actually chosen by the donor family from a painting of the subject by Fra Bartolomeo, an Italian Renaissance painter.