Blehen / Bléhen

Ghislain (1986) mentions the complex representation of some of the motifs and the figures of the frieze: "Les mèches des chevelures et des barbes sont finements striées et parfois bordées de bouclettes contribuant au caractère orientalisant des lions et des têtes allongées impressionnantes des riches cuves de Beauvechain, Saint-Séverin en Condroz et Bléhen". Catalogued and illustrated in Ghislain (2009) as the basin of a baptismal font of the Namurois group, filiation de Saint-Séverin-en-Condroz, made of limestone (calcaire de Meuse) ca. 1155-1160, now in Le Grand Curtius museum, where there is a similar font on display [cf. Index entry for Grand Curtious]. The BALaT database, KIK-IRPA, Brussels (Belgium), reports a marble baptismal font of the first half of the 19th century here, probably the one introduced when the old church was re-built in the 19th century. The basin has four male human heads at 90-degree angles on the basin sides, all four wearing brad and moustache, two with long hair, two with shorter hair; between there is a blind arcade of four round arches suported on comlumns with capitals and bases on each side; the upper surface of the rim is decorated with e feline head [lion?] which spews a long ondulating acanthus vine that goes the full circle; there is a metal staple near the feline head, and the opposite side bears the holes for more of the old cover hardware. Ghislain (ibid.) remarks on detail similarities with the font from Rethel, Bornal, Flostoy, Gerpinnes, Goesnes, the Merksem font at the M.R.A.H. and Ohey.