Alencon No. 1 / Alençon

INFORMATION

FontID: 02785ALE
Church/Chapel: Basilique Notre-Dame d'Alençon
Church Patron Saints: St. Mary the Virgin
Church Location: 53 Grande Rue, 61000 Alençon, France -- Tel.: +33 2 33 26 20 89
Country Name: France
Location: Orne, Normandie
Directions to Site: Alençon is 45 km N of Le Mans on the N138.
Font Location in Church: In the first chapel of the left aisle
Century and Period: 18th century, Baroque
Workshop/Group/Artisan: Maurice Pierlet
According to Malle this font -and the altar- was made by Maurice Pierlet after the fire of 1744: " an oval-shaped baptismal font, four feet in outside diameter at its widest, to be made of the most beautiful Montroux marble[...]". The basin is ornamented with ribs and the base is bulbous but rectangular in all its parts. This is the font in which Thérèse Martin -better known as St. Teresa of Lisieux- was baptised and, as seen in Malle's illustration, her baptismal robe is preserved on the wall above the font (description from notes and ill. in Malle, 1994)

COORDINATES

Church Latitude & Longitude Decimal: 48.429722, 0.088611
Church Latitude & Longitude DMS: 48° 25′ 47″ N, 0° 5′ 19″ E
UTM: 31U 284644 5368159

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone, marble (Montroux marble)
Font Shape: pedestal font
Basin Exterior Shape: oval
Drainage Notes: Maurice Pierlet's comments describe the central drain holes (BIB383)
Diameter (includes rim): "quatre pieds" at its widest (Pierlet, in Malle)
Notes on Measurements: M. Pierlet

REFERENCES

Malle, Louis, Sources du baptême: découvrir les baptistères et les fonts baptismaux, Paris: Éditions de l'atelier, 1994