Issue date: 24 Sep, 2018
TRADITIONAL TRADES. STAINED GLASS ARTISTS.
With a beautiful Premium Sheet bursting with colour, this year’s new stamp in the Traditional trades series features the venerable work of stained glass makers.
These artisans and artists bring colour and form to glass.
This trade, which began long enough ago that its origins are unclear, strikes a balance between the primal element of fire and the delicacy of glass to create something almost magical.
The techniques have advanced and some of the materials have changed, but this ancestral spirit can still be found in all of these workshops.
Beginning with the Renaissance, stained glass artists created masterpieces of form and colour in parallel with the work of painters, architects and designers.
Many commissions came from large religious building projects, where stained glass often became the focal point of cathedrals and churches.
Far from fading into obscurity as a curiosity of the past, technical innovation and artistic passion have kept this art form alive.
The Premium Sheet shows a stained glass artist blowing glass to create beautiful pieces with impossible shapes and vivid colours. The sheet is framed with details recalling stained glass windows, and in one corner, a typical motif of these artworks.
It contains seven stamps and a vignette in the form of a Gothic window, typical of stained glass windows, combining different colours and geometrical forms that stand out against a black background. Notably, both the stamp and the Premium Sheet are printed on transparent acetate to achieve the translucent effect of stained glass.
At the bottom of the Premium Sheet we see the phrase: “Hay que ejecutar el oficio como un artesano. La técnica se enriquece con el trabajo manual. Con el dominio y la habilidad de la mano que ejerce la caña” (We must work like artisans. Technique is enriched by manual work. With the mastery and skill of the hand using the tool), expressing the artisanal spirit and the noble trade of the stained glass artist.
Rate A - €0.75. For a “standard” letter or postcard within Spain, up to 20 g.
Rate A2 - €0.85. For a “standard” letter or postcard within Spain, between 20 g and 50 g.
Rate B - €1.65. For a “standard” Ordinary International letter or postcard addressed to Europe (including Greenland), up to 20 g.
Rate C - €1.75. For a “standard” Ordinary International letter or postcard addressed to the rest of the world (except USA, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand), up to 20 g.
Rate D - €2.10. For a “standard” Ordinary International letter or postcard addressed to the USA, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, up to 20 g.