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Victorian houses in the UK often have hand-painted and gilded house names or numbers on the pane of glass above the front door; the transom window. They vary in their execution, and I was contracted to restore a particularly fine example from around 1900 in Portland, Dorset.

To produce the original piece, the glass was first chosen and cut to size. It's possible the sign painter did this themself as glazing was often a complementary skill to sign painting and general decorative work.

To acid etch the glass, a 'resist' was needed to protect (or mask) the areas where the glass was to remain clear. Brunswick black was first applied to the whole sheet of glass, and then a thin sheet of lead was stuck to this with gold size. The design was laid over this, with a blade used to remove excess lead, and a solvent such as white spirit to take off the gold size and Brunswick black. This left the relevant parts of the design exposed for the acid etching.

Close up of the lower part of the letter S which has been etched into the glass and appears slightly frosted/dappled versus the clear surrounds.
The acid etching is what gives the body of these letters their unique texture.

When talking to Dave Smith (@davesmithartist) about this project, he pointed out that the acid etch on this sign appears to have been done without the addition of mica to the acid—flakes of mica of different grades are added to the acid to create different effects in the final etch.

After the etching, the remaining lead and Brunswick black was removed before gilding the house name and ornamented border. It is this last stage that I had to replicate.

Bringing it Back to Life

When I was brought in to restore the transom window, there were no traces of gold or paint on the glass, although the design gave a clear sense of where the gold should go. The following steps, which will be familiar to anyone with glass gilding experience, allowed the sign to be brought back to life using these skills.

If you're interested in learning more about reverse glass gilding, then check out these resources: A.S. Handover tutorial with Jay at Greater Opacity; Kent Smith's Gold Leaf Techniques book; and the online courses from David A. Smith and Tozer Signs.

My first job was to clean the panel thoroughly. I used a product called Pierre D'Argent and repeated the cleaning process three times to make sure the glass was squeaky clean.

The window after the first and second gilds respectively. The gold is applied on the inside, leaving the upper and lower bands beyond the lettering and ornate border clear.

With the clean glass ready, it was time to gild. I used gelatine size and two gilds of 23.75 carat gold to make it really shine. I then burnished the gild with cotton wool and backed it up with 1 Shot black. This extended slightly beyond the etched areas to create the mirrored outline around the letters and ornaments. After carefully removing the excess gold, I used the same paint for the black outline on the letters.

Using a razor to clean up some of the black used to back up the gold; one of the corner ornaments showing the thin mirrored outline; and applying a protective varnish to the finished piece.

The last step was to apply a protective varnish over the design. I used Rustin's gloss yacht varnish, extending this layer just beyond the edges of the design elements to prevent moisture getting in and pushing the gold and paint off the glass. All being well, this will protect the transon for the next century.

Written by Andy at AJ Signs / @ajsignsdorset

  

The finished transom window, now gilded, protected, and ready for the next stage in its life.

A glass window with gold leaf applied to form an decorative border with corner ornaments and bifurcated lettering in the middle that reads "Rosslyn".
Job done!

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