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The basin called Baptistery of St. Louis is an object of Islamic art, made of hammered brass, and inlaid with silver, gold, and black paste. It was produced in the Syro-Egyptian zone, under the Mamluk dynasty by the coppersmith Muhammad ibn al-Zayn. This is probably one of the most famous Islamic objects and the most enigmatic in the world, now in the Islamic Arts department of the Louvre under number inventory LP 16. Despite its common name, it has no connection with the King of France Louis IX, known as Saint Louis (1226 - 1270).

History
The conditions of commissioning and production of the object are still unknown, as is the date and context of its arrival in France. If it does not appear on the inventory of goods Charles V erected before 1380, it is mentioned around 1440 in an unpublished inventory of the treasure of the Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes. On September 14, 1606, it was used for the baptism of the future Louis XIII.

The Baptistery can be traced several times to the xviii th  century: first in an inventory of the sacristy of the Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes of 1739 and in the article "Vincennes" in Paris Description by Jean-Aimar Piganiol of La Force, in 1742, in these terms:

"In the Treasury, we see the Fonts, which for a long time served at the Bâtme des Enfans de France, and which were brought to Fontainebleau for the Batême du Dauphin, which reigned then under the name of Louis XIII . It is a kind of bowl which was made, it is said, in 897, and which is of red copper covered with silver plates with characters so artistically cut that copper only sees them as if by nets . "

The date of 897 can be explained by the misreading of the Arabic inscription دوه present on the work. In 1779, the Dictionary of Hurtaut and Magny proposes the following description:

"There is preserved in the chapel a basin of copper-red India, in the form of a pan, which is five feet in circumference, where there are figures representing Persians or Chinese. One sees a King on a sort of platform with guards beside him, and that is twice: many hunts of tigers, lions, leopards; in two places, some Arabic words that look at some families of this nation. The basin also depicts several men in helmets & shield; the figures are chiseled in copper, and all that has been chiseled is filled with silver. It is probable that this basin was used for the purifications which were frequent among Orientals, and that Crusades were brought. It served in France at the baptism of some princes of the royal blood. Piganiol says that."

In 1791, Aubin-Louis Milin, in National Antiquities, seems to be the first to make the link between the Baptistery and Saint-Louis:   :

"Piganiol claims that this basin was made for the baptism of Philip Augustus in 1166, the most common opinion is that it was made in 897 among Sarrazins. It is more natural to think that this vase was reported by Saint Louis in one of his first crusades. The name Baptistery of Saint Louis, under which he is known, and the Christians persecuted by the Mahometans whom one notices in the figures, fortify this conjecture. Without it, we might give it an antique vase remotest and say that it was among the curiosities sent to Charlemagne by the caliph Aaron Rashid, many of which are still preserved in the treasury of Saint-Denis and elsewhere. "

The same author recognizes many Western characters; he believes that the four horsemen present in the medallions outside indicate "the number of years that it cost the sultans to chase the Franks". Milin also raises the possibility of an earlier arrival in France, linked to the Embassy of Harun al-Rashid to Charlemagne at the beginning of the ix th  century. The work also presents rather imprecise engravings, but which show that the object has not undergone major modification since that time, with the exception of the addition of two plates to the arms of France in 1821, a date in which the object is used to baptise the Duke of Bordeaux.

On 17 January 1793, the Baptistery is sent to the deposit of Petits-Augustins before entering the museum nine days later. Replaced in 1818 at Vincennes, by order of the king, it returned to the Louvre in 1852, after a decree of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte intimating that "all objects that belonged to the rulers who ruled France would be sought, gathered and placed in the Palace of the Louvre." It left the museum temporarily in 1856 to serve at Notre Dame at the baptismal ceremony of Prince Napoleon Eugene; this is the last time this basin was used as a baptismal object.

The year 1866 is marked by two publications: in the Catalog of the Museum of Sovereigns Henry Barbet de Jouy describes a "basin of Eastern manufactures, known as the Baptistery of St. Louis. [...] The subjects which are represented [...] there are those which are found on the oriental monuments of the highest antiquity, and which the families of artists have repeated traditionally: it is the life of the Saracen prince shared between the fighting, the hunt and the feast; they are different animals attacked and those who are trained to pursue them. When the pond is intended to contain a liquid, fish are most often figured on the bottom and we find them in abundance inside this crater."

Barbet de Jouy calls into question the dating proposed before and puts forward the hypothesis of a work reported in France around 1150. For its part, Adrien Prévost de Longpérier proposes in an article the first scientific study of the Baptistery. He discovered the origin of the false date of Piganiol, refutes the idea that the work has served the baptism of St. Louis, and sees a work of the first half of the xiii th  century, because of lilies in blazons:

"The two lines of animals are cut regularly by eight disks loaded with a lily which seems to have been engraved afterwards, and probably in Europe. There are still some traces, almost erased, to suggest that a star or seal of Solomon was first placed in these discs, a motif of ornamentation very frequently employed in the East. This circumstance gives rise to think that the lily flowers were added to the basin in the xiii th or xiv e  century."

In 1930, Mehmet Aga Oglu, a stylistic analysis is the first to see in the Baptistry a work of Syrian workshop, and the date of the first quarter of the xiv th  century. Nine years later, at the time of the German invasion, the work is made safe in the Chambord castle by Conservative John David-Weill and David Storm Rice, who was then in Paris to study. World War II delayed the release of his monograph, which remains today the most comprehensive and best illustrative reference. His interpretations have, however, been partly questioned by several researchers since then.

Description
The Baptistery of St. Louis is a large basin with streamlined profile, made of a single sheet of brass. According to the publications, its dimensions vary slightly:


 * its height is between 22  cm and 24.4  cm   ;
 * its maximum diameter varies between 50.2  cm and 50.4  cm   ;
 * DS Rice also gives an indication of the minimum diameter: 38.4  cm.

It has a figured decoration both internally and externally, which is characterized by a great diversity of characters, in their clothing, their physical types and their postures. According to DS Rice, this setting would be oriented along an axis passing through the silver under a lip of the basin and a character armor. All the figurative motifs are located on a background of plant foliage, where various animalsare located. Outside, the decoration occupies the lower part of the object; it consists of a main register with friezes of characters interrupted by four medallions, bordered by two friezes of running animals, interrupted by four medallions bearing a lily heraldry. Above the upper register, a vegetal arabesque ends with lancets. A large inscription in silver takes place on the area remained untouched. A running animal frieze is also present on the edge of the lip.

Inside, the decor unfolds in the upper part in the form of a large register decorated with horsemen, interrupted by four medallions: two with a throne scene, two with arms. On either side of this main register unfurl animal friezes interrupted by lily medallions. On the lip, there is also a frieze marked by a wavy pattern, where stylized birds appear. At the bottom of this decoration, a vegetal arabesque ends with lancets. The bottom of the basin is also decorated, on the periphery, with a frieze of lancets, and inside a multitude of aquatic animals.

The outer frieze
The outer frieze includes twenty characters on foot, and four horsemen in the medallions. All are haloed.

The riders all are in action, wearing a costume and have a different physical type. On the other hand, their horses are all harnessed in the same way: a net, a saddle with stirrups, a cover more or less long on the rump, a martingale and ornate buttocks. A scarf with a tassel is tied on the nape of the neck. Their tail is sometimes tied (medallion B and D) and sometimes left free.


 * Medallion A: The rider is a hunter who kills a bear with a spear. He wears a chinstrap hat, a long-sleeved and tight coat. A scarf or cape flies behind him. His face is elongated, smooth, with a protruding chin marked by a point.
 * Medallion B: The rider is turbaned and wears a short-sleeved coat and a polo cane. The face is missing. A bird with a pointed beak and a long neck forming a loop - perhaps a stork - takes place on his back.
 * Medallion C: the rider is a hunter, who thrusts his spear into the open mouth of a serpentine dragon with a knotted body. The man wears a hat, a short-sleeved coat and a cape closed on the chest and fluttering on his back. His elongated face is bearded.
 * Medallion D: the rider seems to wear a headdress tied behind his skull and surmounted by a pompom. His features are reminiscent of the conventions of Iranian representations: a very round face, a mustache and a little goat. His garment, decorated with geometric patterns, is largely missing, but had to be a long-sleeved coat. His saddle is decorated with a bird. The man is an archer: he carries a quiver filled with four arrows and has just unhooked a fifth in the shoulder of a lion.

The foot characters, in the same way, are distinguished by the diversity of their postures, their clothing, their accessories.


 * Headband E1: Five characters, wearing a cloak attached to the chest, hair tied in a bun and a tripartite jugular hat, except for the central figure, who seems bareheaded. All bear beards longer or shorter. Two have arms crossed in the back, one at the left end, seems attached to a stake which we see the base in the ground, between his feet. The second from the left holds an inscribed cup and a long neck bottle. The central figure carries a quadruped in his arms. The character on the far right holds a written cut; his hat is adorned with a feather.
 * Headband E2: Six characters, three turned to the left, three to the right, the central figure looks to the left. Among the characters turned to the right, one is smaller than the others, carries a polo cane, a coat and boots, and seems pushed by a man leaning behind him. The five tall figures are turbaned, hair falling freely and ears free; they wear a sword at the waist, as well as boots sometimes marked by symbols: a point, two dots and a drop, two dots around a vertical line, three vertical lines. Their round faces, marked by a mustache and a goatee, sometimes by a monobrow and picking on the cheeks, could take Mongolian canons. Two carry an ax to the half-moon blade, another a bow on the shoulders.
 * Bandeau E3: Four characters, dressed in a similar way to those of the band E1: a cape closed on the chest, a tripartite hat (whose end is flattened, unlike those of the band E1), low shoes. Three appear to have a stubble; the fourth has a long beard. The third character from the left is wearing a different cap that Rice interpreted as being in bird feathers . The leftmost figure has his arms behind his back, the second holds a cheetah's leash, the third wears a hawk on his gloved hand. The rightmost character holds a crane in his right hand and a dog in his left hand; his hat is adorned with a feather, and he seems to raise his head to observe a duck.
 * Headband E4: Like those in the E2 headband, the five characters in the E4 headband wear long coats, boots marked with symbols (shield scutiforme a fess, round emblem with a fess, two dots, two dots and a drop) and swords. However, their hairstyles are different: three have headbands tied behind the head, another, a kind of turban, the last a hat similar to those of the band E3. All have knotted hair and are heading to the left. On the right, one wears a napkin decorated with five-petalled flowers and peonies on the left arm, and holds with the other hand a large bag he carries on his back; he wears the mustache and the goat, a point on the cheek, and a hat with three feathers. In front of him, a man with a long beard turns his head; he's holding a club. In front, another, whose beard is shorter, carries a bow and arrows. At the left end, two characters carrying the goatee, the mustache and a monobrow, are arranged one next to the other; one, standing, holds a sword, marked with an indecipherable inscription. He presses his hand on the back of the other, who kneels while seeming to put his elbow on the ground . Unlike other characters, the one who kneels does not wear boots. The cannon of faces is thinner than that of the characters of the band E2.

The inner frieze
The medallions of the inner frieze work in pairs. Medallions I and III each have in their center a shield left blank until 1821, and then covered with a coat of arms and surrounded by plant motifs where five five-petalled flowers inlaid with gold can be seen. A frieze of plant motif encircles the whole. Medallions II and IV present a similar throne scene: a person, wearing a tripartite crown and an inscribed cup, sits at the eastern on a striped throne, inscribed on the upper part and supported by two lions with gold necklace; on either side of the throne stands a standing man who holds, for the one on the left, a written writing-board, and for the one on the right, a sword. These standing figures are dressed in a long mantle, and probably received a headdress in the form of a band, disappeared; on their boots are symbols: two dots and a drop. One of them (medallion II, on the left, bears a mustache, a goatee and dots on the face); the others are hairless. The face of one of the sovereigns (Medallion II) has disappeared; the other (medallion IV) also has a mustache and goatee, as well as a monobrow.

Between the medallions, four sets of three riders take place: two hunting scenes (I1, I4) and two war scenes (I2, I3). In all cases, the harness of the horses takes again that of the horsemen of the external medallions.


 * The band I4 shows a lion hunt by three turbaned riders. On the left, the hunter draws his bow in the direction of a lion who bites the chest of his horse; that of the center attacks with the sword the animal which springs before his horse, forced to turn his head; in the rear, the last brandishes a sickle-shaped weapon against the lion perched on the rump of his steed.
 * On the band I1, the two side hunters are turbaned, while the center one wears a headband. The first, whose boots are decorated with two dots and a drop, kills a feline with his spear while above him, a hawk attacks a duck. The one in the center strikes a bear with his sword above him. The last, whose saddle is adorned with a bird, makes a hawk rest on his gloved hand.
 * The band I2 shows three warriors, the two on the left wearing the turban, and the one on the right wearing a hat. The central figure, who, on his boots, carries a vertical line and two points, seems to be attacked by the two others. He shoots an arrow at the left-wing figure, who attacks him with a spear, but is struck by the sword of the character on the right, with two-pointed boots and a drop, which also holds a stick in his other hand . On the ground, cut limbs (an arm, a hand, a head with a pompom hat) testify to the violence of the scene.
 * In the center of the headband I3 a figure entirely covered with a slat armor, the head protected by a caramel that only lets see his eyes and topped with a hat, shoots an arrow at a character in front of him, the sword raised wearing a simple coat, a headband surrounding his head. At the back, a third rider seems neutral: he also wears a hat, holds a spear in his left hand and brings his right hand to his chest.