Liège - Collégiale Saint-Barthélemy

The Collegiate Church of St. Bartholomew, was part of a convent, founded outside the city walls of Liège. The building process started in the 11th century. The church got enlarged, altered and modified over the centuries.

Inside the Collégiale Saint-Barthélemy, now a parish church, is this baptismal font, a medieval masterpiece and icon of the "mosan art", a Romanesque style, that developed around the Meuse valley. The center was the Bishopric of Liège, but it spread to Aachen (= Aix-la-Chapelle), Maastricht and even Cologne.

The font was commissioned around 1107 by Abbé Hellin for the church of Notre-Dame-aux-Fonts, the baptistery of Liege at that time. It was completed by 1118 and is attributed to Renier de Huy, mentioned in a Liège chronicle as "Reinerus aurifaber".