Colmenares de Ojeda

Described and illustrated in Sancho Campo (1971), who dates it to the 12th century and suggests attribution to the 'maestro de Lebanza'. In Martín González (1977); in Guerra (1986 c1978); in García Guinea (1990) and (1998), who dates it to the late 12th century. Described and illustrated in Bibao (1996) [NB: Bilbao (ibid.) lists this basin as hemispheric]. This bucket-shaped font has the sides of the basin crowded with a baptism scene of children; another scene shows the three Marys at the Sepulchre and the tomb with soldiers and angels; there is also a rampant griffin and some vegetation motif; the lower base has monstrous heads from whose mouths issues vegetation. The figures are identified in Caamaño Martínez (1999) as, left-to-right: starting from the griffin, man with child in his arms, another such, another man, two clerics and a woman carrying out the baptism of a child around a baptismal font from whose water emerges the head of a child; the cleric who administers the sacrament blesses with his right hand while holding a beaker or cup in his left; next to him the other cleric holds a cross and helps hold the infant, a task in which the man and the woman (the god-parents?) also help. Caamaño M... (ibid.) argues that the three men which appear to the right of this scene do not belong to the baptism scene but to the next one, the Resurrection, with the three Marys, the sleeping soldiers, the open tomb and the two angels. He dates the font to the end of the 12th century as well. García Guinea (1998) suggests three scenes: 1)the three Marys at the tomb; 2)an immersion baptism; 3)the resurrection of Lazarus. Alvarez Martínez (2007), too, subscribes to the resurrection of Lazarus, and remarks on the connection between themes of the Passion and Resurrection with the regenerative waters of baptism. Noted and illustrated in Martín Jiménez (2008) with suggested date in the late 13th century. [BSI notes (mt): the central section of the baptism scene has a lavishly decorated font in which is an infant submerged to the chin; standing right above and back of him is the main officiating priest, his right hand raised in benediction while the left holds a closed book right on the head of the infant; three other figures participate directly -hands-on, actually- in the baptism; the figure on the left has his arm across and into the font holding the infant, as do the two figures on the right, male and female; the male holds a processional cross in his right hand.