Christ aux mains stigmatisées (Christ with the stigmatized hands)

After ten years of work in the workshop of glass painter Charles Lorin, then ten more exercising his talent in the various fields of ceramics, goldsmithing, furniture and illustration, Gabriel Loire set up his stained glass workshop in Chartres in 1946. A precursor in the technique of stained glass slab glass set with cement, of which he would become one of the most daring representatives during the Trente Glorieuses, Loire must nevertheless begin by convincing the sponsors of Reconstruction the day after of the Second World War. In order to promote his activity and the modernity of his stained glass windows, he first created several exhibition panels illustrating religious scenes or full-length saints, which he permanently presented at the Château de Lèves, near his workshop. Among these are two significantly different examples of a Christ with stigmatized hands, made in 1948 from the same full-size cardboard (Inv. MV 2014.5.1), as well as two large panels in identical formats representing Judas (Inv. . MV 2014.5.2) and Christ in Majesty (Inv. MV 2014.6.1), from a series of four stained glass windows dated 1950. Their design already reveals what will become one of Gabriel Loire's particularities, namely the large flat areas of cement which surround the figures and highlight the silhouettes.