My contribution to the exhibition ART/WORKS concerns an object that has stood in Dortmund-Aplerbeck since the 12th century: the Romanesque baptismal font of the Georgskirche. It shows how a medieval workshop went about its work — even where it left no name behind.
The font and its pictorial programme
The Romanesque font dates from the 12th century, from the founding period of the Georgskirche, and tells a story in five images. Like a sermon in comic form, the sequence runs around the font. Three images show God’s offer of salvation to humankind; they depict the central events of the life of Christ. Two scenes show how people — rulers — respond to that offer.
The stonemason in the workshop
No individual stonemason can be identified for this work. The basin carries neither a mark nor an inscription that would point to one. There are, however, correspondences with two further fonts of identical form: one in the Propsteikirche St. Peter und Paul in Bochum, another in the Protestant church in Dortmund-Brackel. Both were likewise made towards the end of the 12th century. Given the close formal, ornamental and iconographic correspondences, they can be taken as a coherent group of works, possibly from a single workshop. Aplerbeck and Bochum share one pictorial programme in two independent executions — which allows conclusions about a common design concept and about processes of transfer between the objects.
The material: sandstone
The fonts are made of pale yellowish, evenly fine-grained Baumberg sandstone, quarried in the Baumberge, a ridge north-west of Münster at the edge of the Westphalian Basin. A fine, homogeneous grain of this kind allows sharp edges and fine detail — faces, drapery, ornament — without the material breaking away or splintering.
Compared with Ruhr sandstone, Baumberg sandstone was the sculptor’s stone: fine, light, workable in the round. Ruhr sandstone was the region’s building and structural stone, harder and more resistant, well suited to load-bearing masonry. That the fonts were made from Baumberg rather than the closer Ruhr sandstone underlines a deliberate choice of a high-grade sculptural material traded well beyond the region.
The stonemason as draughtsman
Besides hammer, chisel and a range of other stoneworking tools, compasses, squares and styli belonged to the stonemason’s equipment. Not every stonemason could draw, yet hardly any work is likely to have been commissioned without a drawing to hand. As is still the case today, several people tend to have a say in the design (Italian disegnare: to draw). Drawings are documents, and they can be decisive when it comes to payment or to the success of the work.
Both fonts — the Aplerbeck and the Bochum one — show five scenes from the life of Christ: Nativity, Adoration of the Magi, Massacre of the Innocents, Baptism and Crucifixion. They agree in content but are executed in mirror image and differ in detail. In Brackel the sequence was cut away in 1605 and renewed in Baroque form. A strictly chronological reading cannot be sustained on either font; the programme opens up more freely: from the Nativity, two symmetrical axes extend to either side — one telling the infancy narrative (Magi, Massacre of the Innocents), the other the stations of salvation (Baptism, Crucifixion). Comparable arrangements occur on an ivory panel in the Aachen cathedral treasury (around 1100) and on the font at Freckenhorst.
Contribution to the exhibition “ART/WORKS. Werk und Werkstatt im Mittelalter” of the Seminar für Kunst und Kunstwissenschaft, TU Dortmund, 3 September to 4 October 2026 at the Dortmunder U.