Tournai font

Tournai fonts are a type of baptismal font made from blue black limestone during the 12th and early 13th centuries in and around the Belgian town of Tournai by local masons. There are seven complete examples in England and a disputed number in Europe: eighty according to one source, or fifty in Northern France and Belgium and two in Germany according to another.

A sculptural tradition, centred around Tournai, arose in the Scheldt valley from the 11th century onwards. This was characterised by its use of low relief (which was a useful feature when a sculpture was transported), hard lines and the depiction of minute detail, these features arising from the hardness of the material used from the 12th century: Tournai marble. As a sculptural style it is distinguished from the contemporary style of Mosan art, and it was used in sculpture in both Ghent and Bruges. The designation "Tournai font" is employed to identify fonts made by local masons who worked the stone, as opposed to at least two other schools of masons who also sculpted the stone.

The fonts are all sculpted from a single massive block of blue black carboniferous Tournai limestone, known as "Tournai marble" ("marble" because it is capable of taking a polish), quarried from the banks of the River Scheldt. This seam of limestone runs from around Boulogne through the Scheldt and Meuse regions at Tournai and Namur to Aachen, and has been quarried and sculpted since Roman times. One of these quarries, at Veldt-lès-Tournai, is still in operation. As a stone, Tournai marble was prized for its high polish, which made it appear black, and it was popular not only for fonts but also for elements of ecclesiastical architecture (capitals, bases and colonnettes), as well as for tombslabs.

Each font weighs approximately 2 metric tonnes and was probably carved before transport; this can be inferred not only from the fact that the stylistic elements (of people, flora and fauna) on all the fonts in England and the continent show a resemblance, and because the fonts themselves are all of the same shape, but also because transport was difficult and expensive and there would have been little point expending money and effort taking such heavy blocks to a distant site and then discarding up to half the block as waste material.

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Wikipedia