The Times December 15, 2005

1630s font drawing found in a barrow
By Dalya Alberge, Arts Correspondent



A 17TH-CENTURY design for the baptismal font at Canterbury Cathedral has been found in a wheelbarrow at a market in London.

The drawing, made in ink and watercolour on vellum in the 1630s, during the reign of Charles I, was spotted in the Portobello Road. The finder, who wishes to remain anonymous, said: “It was literally lying out on a barrow in the open air and it was spitting with rain, which is not good for vellum.”

Recognising its significance, he bought it “for a song” and took it to Christopher Gibbs, a leading Old Master sculpture dealer in London, who sold it to the Victoria and Albert Museum for £79,000.

The V&A’s purchase was made possible with a grant from the National Art Collections Fund, Britain’s largest art charity.

The museum’s director, Mark Jones, said: “The Canterbury font design is unparalleled in terms of similar drawings of this period and will be a wonderful addition to the V&A’s British Galleries.”

John Harris, curator emeritus of the RIBA drawing collection, described the font design as the “most important English Renaissance architectural drawing to have been discovered in recent years”.

The 25in (63.5cm) by 17½in (44.9cm) work is one of only a handful of English sculptural design drawings that survive from this period.

The font, which was completed in 1639, survived for only two years. It was vandalised by Puritans before being dismantled during the Civil War of 1642-49, although it was subsequently rebuilt.



thetimesonline.co.uk

   

So, I know this is going to make me seem ignorant, but what the heck is a font in this context?

   

Usually a stone holy water bowl on a pedastel, used in a church for baptism.

The other word font or character shapes in England is often spelled as "fount".