In the first scene, the gravely ill monk Hugh is in bed. Behind him, his father abbot, holding a crozier, and a brother monk, holding a book, lean over him in concern. At the center of the panel, a doctor, wearing a fur hat and a long red robe – signs of his wealth and authority – bends over Hugh and offers him a rectangular container of medicine. To his right, his assistant holds a case with more medicines within it.

The first panel of Hugh’s story is, then, a doctor-patient consultation scene, not something one often sees in medieval art. Unfortunately, much of the original medieval paint on the panel has been lost. This may be due to the installation of a coke-fired heater in the Trinity Chapel that changed environmental conditions near the Hugh panels and led to heightened corrosion.

When corrosion and paint loss occurs on faces, as seen with the ghostly faces of Hugh, the doctor, the doctor’s assistant, and the monk behind Hugh, it is particularly disconcerting. Note that the face of the abbot, the man leaning over Hugh, is much more visible than the others. This is because his face is not the medieval original. It is an Austin Jr replacement piece, and over 650 years younger than the other faces.

In the conservation studio, it is often possible to see where the painted detail was on a face (and other corroded pieces) by turning of any backlighting and then shining light from a torch across the glass at a sharp angle. Such “raking light,” as it is termed, can reveal where paint lines once were, sometimes with startling clarity. Today’s conservators would never repaint such faces (this would irreparably damage the medieval glass), but it is possible to create digital reconstructions of how they were painted.