Jugenheim / Heiligenberg

Baptismal font located in the ruins of the Klosterruine Heiligenberg, an 1831 romantic re-building of a medieval convent. Siegfried RCT Enders: Kulturdenkmäler in Hessen suggests the font to be from the church at Jugenheim. The font appears composite: a plain square pedestal base supporting a decorated basin with what at least one scholar (HST) has tentatively identified as scenes of the Chilhood of Christ: an Annunciation followed right by a Nativity. The basin is badly damaged and eroded, relegated to the outdoors for centuries. A communication from Pol Herman to BSI (e-mail of 22 May 2022) notes: "Originally from the parish church of Jugenheim. A baptismal font purchased in 1483 for the church of Jugenheim is now protected by a small roof in the south-west corner of the monastery ruins. The eight-sided basin dates from the 15th century. The red Odenwald sandstone bears three figurative representations on the outer edge: the angel of judgment, Maria and a man with a wide coat collar. Everything is surrounded with tendrils. In 1831, Pastor Westernacher donated the baptismal font, which at that time served as a water trough for the ducks in the courtyard of the former vicarage, to the Grand Duchess Wilhelmine. A picture of the monastery ruins from around 1836 shows it inside the church ruins, albeit in a different place than today." Pol Herman gives Siegfried R. C. T. Enders: Kulturdenkmäler in Hessen. Landkreis Darmstadt-Dieburg. 1988, S. 511–512, 518–520. as reference.