Stavoren

Listed in the Fries Museum records as the surviving basin of a sandstone baptismal dated 1300-1399 from the church at Stavoren. The owner [=Eigenaar] is given as Fries Museum, Leeuwarden; Bruikleen Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, with ref. no. B1947-033. The object consists of a crudely-shaped basin decorated with several deeply carved heads; one appears to be a bishop wearing a mitre, with animal heads on his right and his left [NB: we have no access to the other sides of the basin]; there is still part of a round moulding left around the bottom of the basin; stands on a plain round pedestal base that may or may not be the original. Two conflicting sources on a Stavoren font are reported to BSI by Pol Herman in an e-mail communication (11 November 2021): 1)an article about the old baptismal fonts of Friesland reports that of the approximately 300 old fonts in Friesland, only 8 have survived the reformation; on page 207 is a picture of the "baptismal font" of Stavoren, but on page 202, footnote 28, it is called a "holy water font" of Stavoren, now at the kerkmuseum of Jannum. 2) In the book DE GIDS, JAARGANG 18, 1854, it is noted that a baptismal font from Stavoren, probably one of the oldest that survived in our country, has been added to the collection of the Mauritshuis at 's Gravenhage, thanks to the efforts of late professor Reuvens..