Flone / Flône

Described in Drake (2002) as a baptismal font of the Mosan consisting of a square bowl raised on a single support. This font, dated probably to the mid-12th century, is originally from the church at the ancient abbey at Flône; the font consists of a square basin with vertical sides, each of which is decorated with a blind arcade of six round arches; the four spandrels of the upper surface of the basin, the angles formed between the square sides and the round inner basin, are decorated with, as described in Drake (ibid.): 1)"the ubiquitous Mosan mask with issuing from its mouth [...but here] the mask is horned, 2-3)"pairs of birds touch beaks and entwine their necks, and 4)"the nimbed eagle of St. John"; the underbowl, as often with the Tournai fonts, is round; the base is, as indicated in Drake (ibid.) a single support, a broad shaft with "narrow mouldings, suggesting a wooden barrel with its hoops". Ghislain (1986) states that the font at Thynes [cf. Index entry] looks like a simplified version of this font. The font has an old metal cover, round, with a raised centre and a tiny orb-and-cross finial. Catalogued and illustrated in Ghislain (2009) as a baptismal font of the Namurois group, filiation Beauvechain, made of limestone (calcaire de Meuse) ca. 1150-1155, and adds the fonts at Florennes and Fosses as sharing the motifs of the intertwined animals.