Baptismal font at St Bartholomew's Church, Liège

History

The Liège font was commissioned after 1107 and completed by 1118 for the church of Notre-Dame-aux-Fonts ("Our Lady's with the font"), which abutted the old Liège Cathedral and functioned as the baptistry for the city. These dates are based on the period of office of the Abbé Hellin, parish priest of the church, known to have commissioned it, for in his obituary in the contemporary Chronicon Rythmicum Leodiense (English: Liège Rhyming Chronicle) the font is clearly described, though with no mention of the artist. Both cathedral and church were destroyed during the French Revolution, and the font was hidden for safe-keeping before being moved to its present location in 1804. The Liège chronicle describes a cover with figures of the Four Evangelists and prophets, presumably also in metal, which was lost during the Revolution, along with two of the supporting oxen. The present stone plinth and setting replaced in the 20th century a solid round stone one built in 1804. The font is still used for baptisms today; there is normally a small charge for viewing it.

Renier de Huy

The font was traditionally attributed to Renier de Huy, a 12th-century metalworker and sculptor, but this, and even the Mosan origin of the font, have been questioned and alternative theories advanced. Nothing is known of Rainer's life other than that he was mentioned in a document of 1125 as a goldsmith, but a 14th-century chronicle mentions him as the artist of the font. He may have died about 1150. Another equally shadowy figure in Mosan metalwork from the next generation, Godefroid de Huy or de Claire, also came from the small but prosperous city of Huy on the Meuse.

The only other work generally agreed to be by the same master as the font is a small bronze crucifix (Schnütgen Museum, Cologne); another in Brussels has many similarities. A censer in similar style is attributed to Renier or a follower by many.

Style and origin

The figures on the font are in very high relief, and have a remarkable classicism of style; so much so that it has also been suggested that it was in fact made in Constantinople, or by Greeks in Rome about 1000. Other explanations attribute the classicism to close Byzantine influence, though as Honour and Fleming point out, "In bodily proportions, poses, gestures and garments, they recall Classical models far beyond Byzantine, Carolingian, or even Early Christian art"; they suggest the artist might have seen ancient Greek sculptures in Constantinople when on the First Crusade. Other writers explain the style as emerging from older Mosan and Carolingian traditions, with recent Byzantine influence, and prefiguring Gothic figure style. The idealized figures are modelled in rounded forms; several nude figures are present, and one is seen from behind in a three-quarters view, a sophisticated classical pose.

Art-historical argument over the origin of the font has been vigorous and sometimes acrimonious, and in recent decades mostly conducted in French. In support of the Byzantine origin theory, analysis of the lead in 1993 has shown that it came from mines in Spain or Sardinia, whereas other Mosan works used locally sourced metal. Pierre Colman and his wife Berthe Lhoist-Colman have developed a "Roman" theory, according to which the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III commissioned the font from Greek craftsmen in Rome in about 1000, as a gift for the Basilica of Saint John Lateran there. Decades later it was carried off by Henry IV or Henry V to the Meuse. However most art historians continue to accept the traditional Mosan attribution, and relate the style to the other works mentioned above.

Description

The basin is 91 centimetres (36 in) across at the top, tapering slightly towards the base, and is variously described as of brass or bronze. It was made by lost wax casting, with the basin cast in a single piece; the size was not necessarily exceptional, as both church bells and cauldrons for large households were probably cast at comparable sizes; some church doors cast in a single piece, though flat, were much larger. The font sat on twelve oxen (two are now missing), who emerged from a stone plinth, a reference to the "molten sea... on twelve oxen" cast in bronze for Solomon's temple The five scenes shown, identified by Latin inscriptions ("tituli") on the rim above and in the image field, can be read in chronological sequence:

Except for the last two the scenes are separated by trees which are stylised in typical Romanesque fashion, but whose leaf shapes are all different. A continuous undulating ground-line runs all round the basin. Other inscriptions run round the top and bottom rims of the basin. While the baptism of Jesus is very commonly depicted in Early Medieval art, those of the other figures are very rare subjects indeed, and this unusually elaborate and learned programme was no doubt composed with clerical assistance. It does not reflect Byzantine iconographic precedents; instead it matches closely the interest in typology and allegory, of which the influential contemporary Liège-born theologian Rupert of Deutz was a particular exponent (though Rupert was also a particular opponent of the bishop at the time, Otbert of Liège, who took the Emperor's side in the Investiture Controversy). The head of God the Father that appears at the top of the Baptism of Christ (identified as PATER) is an early appearance of God the Father in Western art; a Hand of God, more typical of the period, appears in the baptism scenes of Cornelius and Craton.

The baptismal font in the little village of Furnaux (Mettet), relatively far from Liège but at that time in the same diocese, has the same theological background linking Rupert de Deutz's theological vision where the Old Testament and New Testament are closely linked.