Glencairn Museum No. 4

Former capital hollowed out to be used as holy-water stoup. Identified in the Glencairn Museum collection with no. 09.SP.16 as: "Sculpture, limestone -- French -- Capital with intertwining figures, masks -- XIII century [no provenance recorded]. Description: Capital with bodies of birds and lions intertwined. Strongly flared from base to abacus, bodies of lions curve outward to support four corners of abacus. In the center of each side an animal mask as boss. Abacus decorated with rinceaux and imaginary birds. Vey lively carving style, high relief, deep undercutting; lions' torsos carved free from block." Described and illustrated in Cahn (1977-1999, vol. II: 63-64), who suggests origin from southern France and dates the capital to the 12th-13th century, one of several that "illustrate the persistence of Romanesque formulas at a time well beyond the heyday of the style." He describes the animal in the impost as "a recumbent lizard-like creature, whose tail ends in a foliage swag", and points out that "a somewhat weaker version of the same design is in the Natinal Gallery of Canada in Ottawa (No. 16.973). [We are grateful to The Glencairn Museum, Academy of the New Church, Brynn Athyn, Pennsylvania, and to Nathan Cole, for the information on, and images of this object]