Barcelona No. 5

A brief remark made in Delcor (1973) about this font as being the only square font of the Romanesque period in the "pays catalans"; gives the location as the Museu Frederic Marès of Barcelona where it arrived before 1955. Catalunya romànica (1984-) makes reference to a parallelepidon-shaped font originally from somewhere in the valley of Aran now kept at the Mares museum ["una pica d'inmersió procedent d'algun endret de la Vall d'Aran que actualment es conserva al Museu Marès de Barcelona"]; the same work, vol. XXIII: 320-321 describes and illustrates this piece [also listed with inventory number 83 in Celina Llarás Usón's introductory essay on the monumental sculpture at the Pallars region (ibid.)] The 1979 catalogue of the Museu Marés lists this object in "Sala III Cripta", with number 950 and the following caption: Immersion font. Granit. Originally from the Valley of Aran. 11th-12th century. Measurements: 134 x 77 x 34 cm. [= "Pica d'immersió. Granit. Procedeix de la Vall d'Aran. Segles SI-SII. Amida 134 x 77 x 34 cms."]. The shallow basin is rectangular both inside and out; one long side has a dragon on the left, looking left, and a rabbit or hare-like animal of about the same size on the right, also looking left, right behind the former; the next narrow side has a quadruped facing right, with a head shaped similarly to that of the deagon in the previous side, with which it shares the corner in a typical arrangement; the animal is most probably a couchant lion with the tail clearly flipped; still following left, the next long side has a bird with a long tail identified in Catalunya Rom. (ibid.) as a peacock; the carving appears rather crude but in deep relief. The piece is dated in this same source (ibid.) to the 13th century by analogy to the carving on some capitals from Aran of that period, and it is suggested that it probably was at some point used as sarcophagus. [NB: although shorter in height than many others, it resembles many of the objects from the Valley of Aran often referred as 'oil fonts', the function of which -besides storing the tithe oil for the illumination and heating of the church- is much in question -- cf. other such entries described as 'oil fonts' in the Workshop/Group field of this Index]