The oldest extant stained glass works date from the eleventh century, and a depiction of stained glass art appears in a tenth century manuscript. The design of these early examples, however, resemble that of Byzantine art, suggesting that the craft may have originated in the Near East. In the Middle Ages, stained glass was used primarily as a religious medium, employed in churches and cathedrals to illustrate Biblical passages, a famous example being the Cathedral of Chartres, France, completed in the mid-1100s.

The basic steps involved in stained-glass making have remained essentially unchanged throughout its history. The artist draws a full-sized cartoon, or pattern, for the finished piece on paper, based on an enlargement from a scale drawing. Pieces of colored glass are created to match the cartoon, either by suspending colored particles in the glass at its manufacture, or by coating glass with dyes--usually...