Throughout Juglaris’s stay in the United States, most of his ecclesiastical commissions were for the decoration of Protestant churches. Whether this reflected the local circles in which he travelled, his own free-thinking spirit, or the particular appeal of his decorative style is not clear. However, in April 1891, during his final year in America before moving back to Italy, he was called upon to assist with the decoration of Saints Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church in South Boston, serving an Irish Catholic immigrant population. The church, serving South Boston’s oldest Roman Catholic parish, was not far from the New England Conservatory of Music in Franklin Square where Juglaris continued to teach figurative painting and design.
Besides decorating the walls of the sanctuary with various motifs, Juglaris executed two immense murals flanking the main altar—the first depicting the flight into Egypt by Joseph, Mary, and Jesus; the second portraying Christ blessing little children. All figures were double life-sized. Each measured seven meters in length (23 feet) and five meters (16½ feet) in height. The murals were cited by Boston newspapers as the largest artwork in the city at the time. The project, which took three months to complete with the assistance of two students, was finished on June 8, 1891.
Despite the press coverage, Juglaris’s mural failed to attract sustained interest. The church was an older building undergoing remodeling and redecoration and it was located in an unfashionable district far removed from Beacon Hill and Back Bay where Boston’s movers and shakers lived. An inspection of Saints Peter and Paul Church in the early 1990s revealed no trace of this work. Walls were painted plain white and no record had been kept of what became of Juglaris’s murals. The struggling parish has since been dissolved, the church decommissioned, and the building converted into condominiums. Perhaps some idea of Juglaris’s lost mural cycle at Saints Peter and Paul Church can be gleaned from a later ecclesiastical commission at the Franklin Federated Church (formerly the Congregational Church) in Franklin, Massachusetts. Completed in the same time interval as his commissions for the Franklin Public Library in 1902-04, the church mural is ensconced above a fireplace mantel. Imbued with a sweep and dignity that also distinguishes Juglaris’s secular paintings, it depicts a very young Virgin Mary being presented for consecration before the High Priest in the Great Jerusalem Temple by her parents, Joachim and Anne. In keeping with religious custom, her father brings to the holy occasion a bird for sacrifice. The church mural was commissioned by Addison M. Thayer and Gertrude Smith Thayer in poignant memory of their daughter, Rachel Margaret Thayer, who died at the age of sixteen from an outbreak of Typhoid Fever.
