Erkrath

Baptismal font noted and illustrated in the German Wikipedia entry for this church [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Johannes_der_Täufer_(Erkrath)] [accessed 2 April 2026] as made in the 12th century of black granite, with a cover from 1912: "Taufbecken aus schwarzem Granit (12. Jahrhundert, Rhein-Maas-Gebiet, Deckelaufsatz von 1912 von Wilhelm Giesbert Werkkunstschule Aachen)". The Wikipedia entry font info above is referenced to: Sieverding, Maren: Aus Wasser und Geist geboren: Das Namurer Taufbecken in St. Johannes der Täufer in Erkrath. In: Erzbistum Köln. 1. Januar 2026, abgerufen am 26. Januar 2026.
A communication to BSI from Pol Herman (e-mail of 27 March 2026), however, provides information from the Diocesis of Cologne [https://www.erzbistum-koeln.de/kirche_vor_ort/service_pfarrgemeinden/kunstdenkmalpflege/objekt-des-monats/Das-Namurer-Taufbecken-in-St.-Johannes-der-Taeufer-in-Erkrath/] [accessed 2 April 2026], which describes the material of the font thus: "The baptismal font of Erkrath belongs to a family whose origins, starting around 1150, lay in the “Belgian” Mosan valley between Dinant and Liège. They consist of a round basin on five supports (one big central pillar and four smaller ones), adorned with four heads. Because the German art historians had not studied similar Romanesque baptismal fonts located in Belgian churches, traditionally since the 19th century, the ones in Germany were attributed to the same stone quarries and stone mason’s workshops. However, Jean-Claude Ghislain has convincingly shown that there existed workshops in the German Rhineland that copied the Belgian style, probably in the first quarter of the 13th century. Typical is the geometric decoration with round arches, closed circles, clover leaves, or crosses. They used locally quarried bleu limestone (Aachener Blaustein). Such fonts are totally absent in the Walloon area. It is improbable that Mosan workshops produced fonts that were exclusively destined for “export” to Germany." The Diocesan page lists it as: "Taufbecken: Material: Sog. Blaukalkstein (Schwarzer Kalkstein) 2. Hälfte 12. Jh. Höhe: 90 cm, Breite und Tiefe: circa 105 cm" and provides the following bibliographical references:
Clemen, Paul (Hg.): Die Kunstdenkmäler der Rheinprovinz (Stadt und Kreis Düsseldorf, Bd. 3 Teil 1), Düsseldorf 1894.
Schulin, Bertram: Taufbecken in Deutschland. Form und Ikonographie, Münster 2021.
Wildmaier, Jörg: Artefakt – Inschrift – Gebrauch. Zur Medialität und Praxis figürlicher Taufbecken im Mittelalter (Tübinger Forschungen zur historischen Archäologie, Bd. 7), Büchenbach 2016.
Zimmermann, Walther: Romanische Taufsteine am Niederrhein, in: Annalen des historischen Vereins für den Niederrhein 155/156, 1954, S.472-500 -- Pol Herman adds a statement from J.-C. Ghislain: "Another example of a truly German font, that the Germans believe to originate from Belgium (Namur)."