A Braid of Light: Stained Glass Windows for the Chapel at Praskvica

Above Sveti Stefan, on the hillside over the sea, stands the old monastery of Praskvica. Its name comes from the water of a nearby spring that smells of peaches, praskva in the local language, and its Church of Saint Nicholas was built in 1413. In 2007 we made 4 new stained glass windows for the chapel at Praskvica.

The design

The designs came from the artist Branka Stijović, who a year earlier had designed the windows for the City Chapel in Budva. For Praskvica she drew 4 tall, narrow windows with round arched tops, about 62 square feet of glass in all.

Each window tells the same simple story in color. At the bottom, a burst of pointed leaves opens like a flower, red, pink and green, around a single red jewel of glass. From its heart a braided ribbon of red and orange rises the whole height of the window, twisting as it climbs, and at the top it turns and bends over in an arch, like a flame, a vine or a prayer going up to heaven. Behind the braid, long leaves of glass point upward in rows, like the needles of a tree or the feathers of a wing.

2 palettes

The windows come in 2 palettes. In the first, the braid glows against green, turquoise and deep violet. In the second, it burns against cobalt and sky blue, under an arch of red and gold. Side by side they answer each other, warm against cool, like the sun over the sea below.

The green window The blue window

Made in Sombor

The 4 windows were cut, leaded and soldered in our studio in Sombor, Serbia. The design leaves no room for painted detail: every curve of the braid is its own piece of glass, held by its own line of lead, so the drawing and the construction are one and the same.

See more of our sacred art and stained glass commissions.

Chapel: chapel at Praskvica, Budva, Montenegro
Design: Branka Stijović
Work: 4 arched stained glass windows, about 62 sq ft
Fabrication: Stanisic Studio, Sombor, Republic of Serbia
Year: 2007