Kantens

Listed and illustrated in Ligtenberg (1915) as a Romanesque baptismal font made of sandstone located in Klinkenborg at the time [NB: the font would be sold to the Groninger museum in 1922 and returned to the church in 2006 -- cf. infra]. Baptismal font of Benthein sandstone consisting of a slightly tapering round basin made of Bentheim sandstone; its design matches the classification assigned in Drake (2002) as "Bentheim School; Type Sögel I, Sögel", which includes fonts at Damme, Greetsiel, Grimersum, Kantens, Rijsen, Sleen, Sögel, Thuine and Uphusen. The decoration has, from top down, a braid, a vine, a second braid, and a second vine; the original base would have had four lions at 90-degree angles, but the present base consists of a cylindrical stem with some carved decoration on the sides, and a plain circular lower base. On 19 September 2006 an article by Ellis Ellenbroek in the Trouw de verdieping [www.trouw.nl/tr/nl/4324/Nieuws/article/detail/1706632/2006/09/19/Kantens-rsquo-doopvont-komt-weer-thuis.dhtml] [accessed 3 January 2016] that the 13th-century sandstone font had just been returned to its parish church at Kantens by the museum at Groeningen; the font had first been for a long time at nearby Klinkenborg until its owner sold it to the Groningen museum in 1922; the move is based on a temporary 3-year loan to be reconsidered later. The font in use for many years before the return of the old Bentheimer was a small 1916 metal bowl on a metal stand [not dissimilar from an ashtray].