Beautiful Italian-style medieval mosaics - a scoop for Baltimore

I spent the past week reading numerous articles in the Baltimore Sun that chronicle the building and decoration of our church between 1885 and 1914.  The information found there is not always complete and perhaps not always accurate, but it does paint a picture of the various stages of construction.  Corroborating the information found in secondary sources with what can be found in primary sources may take a while.  One article that caught my eye relates to the five large mosaics in the apse of the church. 

 These five mosaics were installed in October 1896 and were supposedly made by a process which originated in Florence, Italy in the Middle Ages.  The features, folds or drapery and other larger parts are painted and vitrified in fire on larger pieces of opaque glass.  The gold background, the nimbi, and other minor parts of the figures were set in the usual mosaic style with small tesserae set together in numberless minute pieces.    

Corpus Christi may be the only known church in the United States to possess mosaics of this kind.  According to the Baltimore Sun of October 6, 1896, they were most definitely a ‘scoop’ in the United States:

“It will undoubtedly be conceded by all lovers and students of mural decoration who have had the advantage and good fortune to be able to study the glories of Venice, Florence and Rome, that no process yet fashioned or devised by the artistic skill of man for this most important province of decorative art can approach in rich effect or brilliant splendor the glass mosaics of which every fine examples are to be found in medieval Italy.  […] Notwithstanding the rapid and splendid growth of ecclesiastical art and architecture in America of late years, few important examples of mural mosaics are yet to be seen in the churches of the land, and it becomes a matter of congratulation to the city of Baltimore that there has recently been completed in one of the most beautiful and monumental of its Catholic churches, Corpus Christi, on Mount Royal Avenue, the Jenkins Memorial Church, a series of five large pictures, each measuring over five feet in width by eight feet in height, representing five of the great subjects in sacred history, the Incarnation and Passion of our Lord, His Resurrection and “Corpus Christi,” the Holy Eucharist."

The mosaics, just as the stained glass windows of the church, were prepared and installed by John Hardman and Co., a firm from Manchester well known for its ecclesiastical work in England. 

The mosaics exemplify the style of the Pre-Raphaelites, a movement that flowered in England in the 2^nd half of the 19^th century.  The artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, as it was initially called, were discontented with the lifeless academic style of painting that tried to imitate the art of the great artist Raphael and yearned to return to the more vivid and intense painting style of 15^th century Italian artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. [1],[2],[3]

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[1] Walking tour, p. 8.

[2] "Beautiful Mosaics: Splendid Examples of the Decorater's Art Placed in Position in Corpus Christi Catholic Church." Sun [Baltimore] 6 Oct. 1896: 7. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Web. 31 Jan. 2015.

[3] Gettinger, Steve, A Tour of Corpus Christi-Jenkins Memorial Church, p. 8. 1991. TS. Corpus Christi Church Archives, Baltimore, Md.

Corpus Christi-Jenkins Memorial Church

 

Corpus Christ-Jenkins Memorial Church -- from In Memoriam Ellen Jenkins 1841-1908.

Corpus Christi-Jenkins Memorial Church is on the National Register of Historic Places. It was the first church in the United States to be named Corpus Christi, the first church in Baltimore to be built entirely of granite, and it is one of the few "memorial" Catholic churches in the country devoted to an individual or family. Corpus Christi Church was built a memorial to the Jenkins family, an old Baltimore family, prominent in business, philanthropy, church affairs and the arts. 

Thomas C. Jenkins -- from In Memoriam Ellen Jenkins 1841-1908.

Thomas Courtney Jenkins was a banker and a railroad magnate.  He was born in 1802, the eldest son of William Jenkins and his wife Ellen Willcox.   Upon completing his studies at St. Mary’s College in Emmitsburg, Maryland, he joined his father in the leather business in Baltimore.  In 1822 he was given an interest in the firm, but he left 6 years later to establish the "Poland and Jenkins" firm with Mr. Poland Adams.

Thomas C. Jenkins soon became a very successful business man.  In 1832 he became the director of the Mechanic’s Bank, a position he held for forty-nine years.  For many years he was also the director of the Savings Bank of Baltimore.  He was one of the original organizers of the Parkersburg and Central Ohio Railroad, the Northern Central Railway, and the Atlantic Coast Line.  He also organized the Merchants and Miners Transportation Company, and became its first President.

Louisa Carrell Jenkins -- from In Memoriam Ellen Jenkins 1841-1908.

In 1829 he married Louisa Carrell from Philadelphia who had been a boarding student at Mother Seton’s School in Emmittsburg.  Of Irish descent, Louisa Carrell was the sister of George Aloysius Carrell who later became the first bishop of Covington, Kentucky.  The couple resided for many years at 608 North Calvert Street in what was then called Waterloo Row.  In 1851 they moved to 721 St. Paul Street.

Thomas and Louisa Jenkins were prominent members of the Catholic Church in Baltimore.  They were were very active in the church and its various causes.  Thomas Jenkins was one of the first pewholders and oldest member of the Board of Trustees of the Baltimore Cathedral (The Basilica).  He was an incorporator of St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum and St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys.   His house frequently hosted many of the prelates of the church, especially during their attendance at the councils held in Baltimore.  He was an intimate friend of James Gibbons, archbishop of Baltimore and later Cardinal.

Thomas Jenkins retired from business in 1865.  He passed away on Christmas Eve in 1881.  His wife, Louisa Carrell, died a year later, but before she did, she asked her children to build a chapel in memory of their father.  The children fulfilled their mother’s wish by building one of the most beautiful churches in the archdiocese and dedicating it to the memory of both their parents.[1]

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[1] Joseph Willcox, Ivy Mils, 1729-1866: Willcox and allied families (Baltimore: Lucas Brothers, 1911), p. 87-89.