Rotterdam No. 2

The Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen acquired a Mosan font from an antique dealer in Limburg in 1942. The object has inventory Number Bek 1089 and measures 98 cm in height. The font consists of a bucket-shaped basin with four human heads set at 90-degree angles on the sides just below the rim; of the visible heads from the source [cf. ImagesArea] one is male, bearded; one other is female, wearing a wimple; plain cylindrical stem; round-to-square lower base with animal(?) protomes at the corners. No cover present. A communication from Pol Herman to BSI (e-mail of 10 February 2022) informs that he approached Lisanne den Besten, Registrar Oude Kunst of the Museum, seeking more information on the object but was told that there is no other information available about this font there, but the material is given in the museum link [https://www.boijmans.nl/collectie/kunstwerken/40318/doopvont] [accessed 12 February 2022] as limestone, and its location in the museum storage [="in het depot"]. A further communication from Pol Herman [same date as above] points out the striking similarity between the bases of this font and that at Saint-Séverin-en-Condroz [cf. BSI entry], where the 'bulges' on the sides of the lower base correspont to the colonnettes of the upper base, which makes Pol Herman ponder about the possibility that the font in the Rotterdam museum may have had a different base originally or, put in a different way, that the basin of the museum font may have had a different base originally, which would make the font a composite object. A further communication from Pol Herman to BSI (e-mail of 11 February 2022) informs of a consultation he had with Jean-Claude Ghislain, who agrees with Pol's suggestion of this being a composite font: "Vous avez raison, [Pol]: la base est romane et vos comparaisons sont pertinentes. La cuve est de tradition romane, mais les têtes présentent des détails gothiques du 13e siècle. Cordialement, Jean-Claude Ghislain"