Ohey / Ohè

Noted and illustrated in KIK-IRPA (Brussels), as a fragment of a Romanesque baptismal font from ca. 1200, placed at the time [1958?] in Leuven Universiteit, Hoger Instituut Oudheidkunde en Kunstgeschiedenis (object no.: 118231). Ghislain (1986) mentions a fragment of a baptismal font from Ohey in the museum at Louvain-la-Neuve [="la cuve incomplète d'Ohey, au musée de Louvain-la-Neuve"]; this author describes the material as "calcaire carbonifère dévonien de l'étage Viséen appelé pierre de Meuse". The entry for this piece in the AICIM database [http://aicim.cfweb.be] identifies a semi-circular fragment "en calcaire viséen"; the fragment has two male heads, one at each end of what is obviously one of the sides of the basin, with a blind arcade between them; the AICIM source [cf. supra] describes the head on the left as bearded and with the long hair parted in the middle, whereas the head on the right is clean-shaven and wears a mitre [much like the one on the Mosan font at Gerpinnes]; the font is dated in this source to between 1190 and 1210. Noted in Drake (2002) as the fragment of a Mosan font, who remarks on the "decorated and twisted column shafts" of the arcade, only two per side. Catalogued and illustrated in Ghislain (2009) as a fragment of a baptismal font of the Namurois group, filiation de Saint-Séverin-en-Condroz, made of limestone (calcaire de Meuse) ca. 1160, found among the foundations of the old church of Saint-Pierre of Ohey, during its demolition in 1888-1889; the fragment went into the Th. Van Dormael collection at Heverlee, and, later, in 1938, to the University of Louvain [cf. supra], from where it was ceded to the Musée de Louvain-la-Neuve in 1979. Ghislain (ibid.) shows that the sides left and right of the mitred head were decorated with blind arcades of round arches on columns with capitals and bases, whereas the side to the left of the bearded and mustachoed head has the palmette-like end of a vine, making it very similar to the font at Goesnes, but it also shares characteristics with those at Gerpinnes and Flostoy.