Vreeland

Ortt van Schonauwen (1858) writes of the fragment of of an old stone baptismal font located in a garden not far from the church, amounting to about the third of the basin; the fragment has three outer sides of the octagon, with a male and female head still remaining on it, though much damaged; the upper side between the heads has a flat moulding, a scotia and a roudn moulding below; the sides below have framed rectangles containing foliage, and other carvings; not much is left of the underbowl, but one almost-full side has survived and shows a crown of thorns on it; the next side to the right shows part of a winged beast. Based on these characteristics Ortt van Schonauwen (ibid.) suggests a similarity with the fonts at Amersfoort and Eepe, and a dating in the 14th century or later. The fragment remained just outside the village, by the road from Vreeland to Loosdrecht, and was, at the time of OvS' writing in the Stedelijk Museum van Oudheden [now Centraal Museum] in Utrecht. Noted in Cruysheer (2009), with an illustration captioned "Foto van het middeleeuwse doopvont uit Vreeland (Portengen, Niftarlake 1919)." The present entry in the Centraal Museum [http://centraalmuseum.nl/ontdekken/object/?img_only=1#o:27154] [accessed 22 January 2016] reads: "Fragment van achthoekig doopvont (1400 - 1499 – 15de eeuw). Schenking + 1905 (bruikleen sinds 1874). Dit object is nu niet in het museum te zien", and the annotation informs that it is probably from the church at Vreeland, and was found in a garden nearby. [NB: it is possible that the eight-sided underbowl contained symbols of the four Evagelists alternating (?) with four Instruments of the Passion. The similarity to Epe and Amersfoort mentioned in OvS [cf. supra] refers only to the general shape of the font, as those fonts have none of the detaild carvings on the sides and underbowl; they do, however share tha heads and moulded upper side]. The basin fragment is noted and illustrated in J.A. Portengen's De Doopvont uit de Kerk te Vreeland (1919: 30-31); it places the fragment in the Museum te Utrecht, with inventory/control number 1414. [in JAARBOEKJE van het Oudheidkundig Cenootschapp "NIFTARLAKE", 1919 [NIFT_1919.pdf]