Gaillac No. 2 / Galhac

Described in the Dictionnaire des églises.. (1966- ) as a Romanesque stoup ornamented with foliage in which two birds quench their thirst drinking from the "calice d'une fleur (symbole de l'Eucharistie)" [cf. Index entry Gaillac No. 1 for the baptismal font at this church]. This is the same item described and illustrated in Lasteyrie (1929: 710, pl. 720), a rather shallow basin without a drainage hole; the sides have deep-relief ornamentation made up of foliage roundels which house birds. Lasteyrie relates this ornamentation style to the contemporary sculpture from Toulouse and Moissac and informs that the present base is not the original (ibid.) On-site notes: of the two objects found in this church one, the stoup on the north side, corresponds to the Dictionnaire... and Lasteyrie's description, although the ornamentation is quite blurry now [June 2001]. Another stoup, octagonal and likely medieval, exists on the south side [cf. Index entry for Gaillac No. 3]