Neuve-Maison / Neufves-Maisons / Novem Domus

Baptismal font consisting of a square basin with a rounded underbowl, the sides decorated with a variety of motifs (birds, foliage, fish); made of dark Tournai limestone; one of the sides has a large geese-like bird, a small cetacean (?) mammal below the tail of the avian, and a fleur-de-lys (?) in a circle below the neck of the bird; the next side has an avian animal with two heads, a rather prosaic rendition of the amphisbaena, the Greek mythological bird with an additional head at the tail; the next side shows a quadruped passant to the right and, although it very much resembles an angry dog, the position of the tail pointing forward over its back and the raised paw would suggest a lion; like the other animals carved on this font, it is clear that the mason was more adept at rendering lovely acanthus vines than at achieving any naturalistic zoomorphy, which brings us to the last side, decorated with a very rendition of the characteristic acanthus vine in four roundels; the basin is raised on a round pedestal base of a different stone [NB: many Tournai fonts were exported as basins only, the bases made locally]. Fleury (1878-1882) writes of a group of fonts that have similar vine motifs: those at Corbeny, Erlon, Neuve-Maison and Nouvion-le-Vineux, and points out the symbolic animals on the font of Neuve-Maison, which he illustrates. Listed by Enlart (1902) as one of several 11th-12th century square fonts mounted on a column base. Corblet 1881-1882) dates it to the Romanesque period, and mentions ornamentation of vine leaves, doves, a fish and a sort of peacock. Listed in Palissy [ref.: PM02000856]: "Cuve carrée à fond hémisphérique, portée sur un fût monocylindrique. La base, en pierre blanche, est une adjonction. Pierre bleue de Belgique [...] 11e siècle".