A rare Tiffany stained glass window from the First Presbyterian Church in Topeka, Kansas, is about to be put up for auction, raising questions about the fate of the religious artistic heritage in the United States.
Why is the Tiffany window in Topeka going up for auction?
Among the cultural treasures of Topeka stands out the First Presbyterian Church, a 140-year-old neo-Gothic church in the city center, famous for its 10 Tiffany windows. However, from December 2025, the building will have one less masterpiece.
One of its most prized windows, a medallion made by Tiffany Studios over a century ago, has been entrusted to the Design sale at Sotheby’s, scheduled for December 10. The work is valued between 1.5 and 2 million dollars, placing it among the most coveted lots of the event.
The church justifies the choice with economic reasons. The complex, originally built for a larger community, is now maintained by about 360 congregants, with rising costs for the structure and the preservation of the historic windows.
What makes the Jonathan Thomas Memorial Window special?
The artistic glass of Louis Comfort Tiffany, produced in the historic furnace in Queens, New York, gave life to thousands of windows over forty years. Of these, fewer than 60 are medallions, designed to evoke the light and structure of European Gothic windows.
It is estimated that only 45 medallions have survived. Among them, the Jonathan Thomas Memorial Window is considered one of the most successful examples for compositional balance and luminous quality, which is why its removal from an original context draws particular attention.
The window belonged to a cycle dedicated to biblical passages, commissioned in 1910 by Josephine Thomas in memory of her husband Jonathan, a Civil War veteran and lumber entrepreneur in Topeka. In this specific case, however, the design is more abstract compared to traditional figurative scenes.
How was the medallion designed and what symbols does it contain?
The medallion features a magnetic field of connected geometries, an intertwining of shapes that recalls medieval windows without literally reproducing their subjects. Unlike many memorial windows, it does not narrate sacred episodes but focuses primarily on light and color.
As with other works inspired by Gothic models, the design is attributed directly to Tiffany. As a teenager, the artist visited the Chartres Cathedral and was struck by it, particularly by the 13th-century windows. He derived the conviction that the irregularity of the glass was the key to its beauty.
Air bubbles and variable thicknesses, according to his observation, intensified the brilliance of the filtered light. From this intuition, in 1894, the development and trademark of the famous Favrile glass emerged, which would mark the aesthetic of the manufacture.
For the Topeka commission, Tiffany scattered the surface of the medallion with hand-engraved Favrile gems, in speckled explosions of emerald green, amethyst, and sapphire. These three-dimensional elements guide the eye along the structure of the window, emphasizing the iridescent effect.
How does the medallion differ from medieval models?
Often the glass gems are inserted within the medallions, in positions that, in medieval counterparts and other Tiffany windows, host Christological scenes. Here, however, the narrative component is greatly reduced.
Explicit references to Jesus appear only in the upper part of the arch. The Greek letters Alpha and Omega allude to the beginning and the end, while the signs IHS, Chi, and Rho form an abbreviated version of the name of Christ in Greek.
This sober iconographic choice is not entirely usual for a window intended for a Presbyterian church. However, it also reflects the particularity of the dedication: Jonathan Thomas was a practicing Quaker, and his wife believed that this church was the most suitable place to honor his memory.
Why did the church decide to sell the Tiffany window?
The First Presbyterian Church of Topeka explained that the combination of the costs of managing the historic building and those of restoring its windows made the sale inevitable. Maintenance, particularly for works of this complexity, requires significant resources.
Pastor Sandra Nichols recalled in an email that sending a single Tiffany window for restoration cost over 50,000 dollars a few years ago. For a small community, such figures weigh heavily on the ordinary budget.
The church’s stated hope is that the proceeds from a single window, if invested wisely, will ensure the long-term care of the building and the remaining works. In this sense, the sale is presented as an act of responsible stewardship, rather than a relinquishment of heritage.
What other Tiffany masterpieces will be offered at auction?
Paradoxically, the Topeka medallion is not the most expensive lot in the selection. The top spot, in the same Sotheby’s auction, belongs to a Magnolia floor lamp, considered one of the pinnacles of the manufacture’s design.
The piece comes from the Schur Family Collection and is most likely attributed to Agnes Northrup, a key figure in the Tiffany studio. Rising in rank over the years, by 1890 she had her own studio, for which she filed various patents related to her creations.
Dated 1910, the lamp features a rich expanse of three-dimensional magnolias, connected to a bronze base that echoes the profile of the depicted flower. The estimate is between 2 and 3 million dollars, confirming the strong demand for these objects on the international market.
This trend fits into a particularly vigorous phase for Tiffany works at auction. Last June, a commemorative window from the Gilded Age was sold for 4.2 million dollars, confirming a sustained price level compared to other similar categories.
In the coming months, moreover, a sale at Christie’s will offer a dozen works from the same manufacture, each with the potential to reach seven-figure sums. The overall picture indicates that, at least for now, the Tiffany market remains in an expansive phase, with particular attention to rare and well-documented works.
Overall, the sale of the Tiffany window in Topeka reveals the tension between heritage conservation and the economic sustainability of religious communities. At the same time, it confirms the central role of Tiffany’s creations in the high-end segment of international collecting.
As expert in digital marketing, Amelia began working in the fintech sector in 2014 after writing her thesis on Bitcoin technology. Previously author for several international crypto-related magazines and CMO at Eidoo. She is now the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Cryptonomist and Econique.
She is also a marketing teacher at Digital Coach in Milan and she published a book about NFTs for the Italian publishing house Mondadori, while she is also helping artists and company to entering in the sector. As advisor, Amelia is also involved in metaverse-related project such as The Nemesis and OVER.
