Baptistère de Saint Louis

The Baptistère de Saint Louis is an object of Islamic art, made of hammered brass, and inlaid with silver, gold, and niello. It was produced in the Syro-Egyptian zone, under the Mamluk dynasty by the coppersmith Muhammad ibn al-Zayn. This object is now in the Islamic Arts department of the Louvre under inventory number LP 16. Despite its common name, it has no connection with the King of France Louis IX, known as Saint Louis (1214–1270). It was used as a baptismal font for future French kings, making it an important Islamic and French historical object. The origins and original purpose of the basin are not fully known, since the first record of the object was in a French church inventory. It was possibly used as a ritual washing bowl at the Mamluk court or it could have been commissioned by a Christian patron. The Baptistère de Saint Louis has a complicated visual program on the interior and exterior, depicting a number of different groups of people, a wide variety of animals, fish, plants, and Arabic inscriptions. The basin was made through an engraving and hammering process using precious and high quality metal. Due to the ambiguous history of the basin, the meaning of the iconography, the exact date and location of its creation, and sponsorship is still being debated by scholars.

The conditions of commissioning and production of the object are still unknown, as is the date and context of its arrival in France. It does not appear on the inventory of goods Charles V erected before 1380, but it is mentioned around 1440 in an unpublished inventory of the treasure of the Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes.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 king Louis XIII.

The Baptistery can be traced several times to the 18th century: first in an inventory of the sacristy of the Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes of 1739 and in the article "Vincennes" in Description of Paris by Jean-Aimar Piganiol of La Force, in 1742, in which he explains that the baptistery was located for some time at the Bâtme des Enfans de France and served at the baptism of Dauphin who later went on to reign as Louis XIII. He then goes on to describe the Persian or Chinese figures throughout the basin as well as the variety of animals represented throughout the inner frieze. In 1791, Aubin-Louis Milin, in National Antiquities, seems to be the first to make the link between the Baptistery and Saint Louis The same author recognizes many Western characters; he believes that the four horsemen present in the medallions outside indicate the years of conflict between the sultans and 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 10th 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 was 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 stating 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 in 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 the subjects of the basin and their depiction of a S

Church data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).