Soignies No. 1 / Zinnik

Documented in Deveseleer, Ghislain, Reynders and Vereecke (2003). Described and illustrated in Drake (2004). The fragments of a Romanesque baptismal font that had been built into the north wall of the Collégiale Saint-Vincent; the fragments were recovered, cleaned, restored and remounted on a modern five-support base as a font. The basin is of the "table-top" type with carving on the sides. Drake (ibid.) notes: "the two identical sides display crouching lions, crups to the centre and the heads at the corners turned to face the viewer", and, like most Tournai fonts, the identical sides are adjacent. On the two dissimilar sides, Drake (ibid.) notes, "one also displays a pair of beasts, heads again at the corners, and turned to face the viewer […]". Drake points out that these beasts are original, with no others like known on Tournai fonts anywhere, suggesting that they may dragons, issuing out of an inverted lion's mask. Drake (ibid.) compares the 'creatures' on the fourth side to another such found in a spandrel of tge Tournai font at Zedelgem. The upper surface of the basin is decorated with concentric circles and pairs of palmettes and flkeur-de-lis like motifs. Three strange-looking creatures (?) appear on the visible side: they consist of an octopus-like head with two sides or tails that curl in the fashion of the Romanesque dragon tails, but end in fish fins; they are probably a rendition of mermen, male sirens, but lack the more commonplace human torso, or the human features that would help one decide whether they are sirens at all, and if so, male or female. The listing for this object in BALaT KIK-IRPA [https://balat.kikirpa.be/object/10073133] [accessed 18 August 2025] reads: "Fragments de fonts baptismaux encastrés. Rassemblés en 1995. Bibl.: Jacques Deveseleer, Jean-Claude Ghislain e.a., La cuve baptismale romane de la collégiale Saint-Vincent de Soignies. Son sauvetage et sa place dans la production tournaisienne du Xlle siècle, Soignies, 2003 [...] tour occidentale, mur nord (partie haute) [...] Date: 1101 - 1200 [...] Tournai".