Zettler Studios

Photographer unknown. Franz Xaver Zettler and His Two Sons. From Josef Ludwig Fischer, Vierzig Jahre Glasmalkunst: Festschrift der Kgl. bayerischen Hofglasmalerei F.X. Zettler, zum Gedaechtnis ihres vierzigjaehreigen Bestehens (Munich: George Mueller, 1910).

The Preservation Resource Center's Stained Glass Art in Sacred Places Committee has recently announced its fall tour, "Celebrating Twenty Years of Stained Glass Tours: The Irish Channel." Scheduled for September 20, the tour will include St. Mary's Assumption, Jackson Avenue Evangelical, St. Theresa of Avila and the St. Alphonsus Art and Cultural Center.

Typical for American immigrant churches, many of the stained glass windows in St. Mary's Assumption and St. Alphonsus were Bavarian. F.X. Zettler launched his own stained glass window business there in 1870, after working for his father-in-law, Joseph Gabriel Mayer. "Mad" King Ludwig II, who built Neuschwainstein Castle, honored Zettler's company by appointing it "The Royal Bavarian Institute for Stained Glass" in 1882.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Zettler operated an international business with over 500 employees, and shipped his windows to churches across the United States, Russia, Australia, and South America. Vierzig Jahre Glasmalkunst: Festschrift der Kgl. bayerischen Hofglasmalerei F.X. Zettler, zum Gedaechtnis ihres vierzigjaehreigen Bestehens, Zettler's corporate history published in 1910, outlined church and secular production, artistic styles, and the expansion of the business to America and other overseas locales.