Marville

Holy-water stoup listed in Palissy [ref.: PM55000387]: "Bénitier [...] fonte [...] an forme de mortier [...] 15e siècle [...] Chapelle Sainte-Hilaire dans le cimetière". Another listing in Palissy [ref.: IM55000048] obviously referes to a different stoup, this one located inside the parish church, "Nef, 1ère travée sud"; it is futher described: "Bénitier dit localement saillon [...] Bénitier en fonte ; poignées en fer ; cuve en plomb [...] Figure (femme, en buste, nudité) ; représentation animalière (?) [...] H = 54,5 ; d = 49 [...] 4e quart 16e siècle". Chastel (1996, p. 288) mentions a holy-water stoup decorated with figure(s) and raised on a pedestal in this church. In Le Patrimoine des communes de la Meuse (1999, v. 2, p. 695) a holy-water stoup is listed for the church of Saint-Nicolas: it is a cast-iron bucket-shaped stoup mounted on three tiny "chiots" [=puppies]. There are two female figures at opposite ends of the basin side and the upper rim has two large handles with rings placed at 90-degree angles of the female figures on the sides. The same source informs that this type of stoups are common in the Lorraine and that they are called "saillon" [=bucket]. [NB: the "bucket shape" so common in metal fonts and stoups all over Europe is probably related to the fact that the makers of these objects were the same foundries which made church bells and metal mortars, a design almost identical except for the curve of the base. For an extraordinary example of a bucket-shaped font cf. the entry for the Hildesheim Dom in this Index]. [NB: it is not clear whether or not the two sources refer to the same stoup. Chastel [cf. supra] refers to it being mounted on a stone pedestal but fails to give the material of the stoup itself; the Patrimoine... source cited above, however, under the entry for nearby Montmédy, has an early 17th century stone stoup which it describes as "comparable à ceux du site de Saint-Hilaire de Marville" (op. cit., v. 2, p. 700). [NB: there are two -if not three- cast iron stoups here [cf. ImagesArea] slightly different from each other [cf. ImagesArea]; one/two of them have stumpy legs, whereas one other stands on tiny quadrupeds and has figural decoration on opposite sides [cf. supra]]. An old [undated] postcard in Retro Photo [https://www.retrophoto.fr/france/marville/65040/benitiers-de-leglise-3726665] [accessed 26 December 2023] shows two of the metal stoups in this church on the sides of a statue of the St. Mary; the caption reads: "Benitiers de l'Eglise (pierre et fonte (XIVe et XVIe siècles)"