Laon No. 3

Enlart (1902), and Bond (1908) after him, list it as a Tournai-type of the 11-12th century. The entry by Georges Dumas in the Dictionnaire des églises... (1966- ) describes this as a Tournai font, square basin mounted on a single broad cylindrical column; the sides are ornamented with palmettes, fruit and colonnettes; he also gives those at Nouvion-le-Vineux and at Jeantes-en-Thiérache as cognates [NB: the vine and fruit motifs do not appear on this font, but on the other font also in the cathedral]. Described in Saint-Denis, Plouvier & Souchon (2002): one of two baptismal fonts now in the cathedral of Laon [cf. Index entry for Laon No. 1 for a Tournais/Namur font of about the same date in this church]; this one, which consists of a plain grey-marble [Tournai marble] basin of the 12th century now raised on a modern white limestone base, may have been originally from the nearby church of Saint-Remi-à-la-Porte and was, for a time, kept in the lapidary 'museum' located in the lower chapel of the episcopal palace, where it was apparently photographed by Camille Enlart. Drake (1997) and (2002), who groups this as a "not conclusive product" of the Tournai school, writes: "Because of the damage it is not easy to be certain how to describe the Laon Cathedral font but it appears that it might be an unusually deep Lombard frieze, with each impost ending in a decorative finial rather than supported on a coulmn. The upward-curving water-leaf which invades the face from the belly is approximately the width of one and a half arches and the arcade was obviously carved around the leaf as only complete arches are shown." Listed in Palissy [ref.: IM02000162]: "Ces fonts baptismaux se tenaient encore à la fin du 19e siècle dans la chapelle dite des Fonts baptismaux au sud de la nef ; la cuve date sans doute du 13e siècle mais le pied ne remonte pas au-delà du 19e siècle ; ces fonts étaient auparavant conservés dans la chapelle basse du palais épiscopal." [cf. Index entry for Laon No. 1 for another font also in the cathedral]