The Baptistère de Saint Louis is an object of Islamic art, made of hammered brass, and inlaid with silver, gold, and niello.

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.

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 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[2] 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.

In 1791, Aubin-Louis Milin, in National Antiquities, seems to be the first to make the link between the Baptistery and Saint Louis[3] 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.

[6] 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 Saracen prince fighting, hunting, and feasting, as well as the different animals, some predators and some prey.

Barbet de Jouy calls into question the dating proposed before and puts forward the hypothesis of a work reported in France around 1150.

[8] Nine years later, at the time of the German invasion, the basin was made safe in the Chambord castle by conservationists John David-Weill and David Storm Rice, who was then in Paris to study.

According to publications, its dimensions vary slightly: It has decoration depicting human figures both internally and externally, which is characterized by a great diversity of characters, in their clothing, their physical appearance and their postures.

Medallions I and III each have in their center a shield left blank until 1821, and then covered with a coat of arms[17] and surrounded by plant motifs where five five-petalled flowers inlaid with gold can be seen.

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.

Engraved on the cup carried by the character in the band E1 The technique of making this object consists of inlaid metalwork which is still practiced in Cairo to this day.

The final step is coating the bowl with bituminous black material, which enhances the engravings, highlights the contours, and creates contrasts.

Despite its generally stable state of conservation, the Saint Louis Baptistery has lost part of its inlay, either because of the wear of time (which is probably the case for the fish that were covered by water) or by vandals who stole the precious metal.

[36] There is another basin also very close in form and decoration, but is unfinished probably because of a technical accident (a crack in the background) and is kept at the LA Mayer Memorial in Jerusalem, and was attributed to Muhammad ibn al-Zayn by Jonathan M.

[38] All the frieze animals are traditional species in the arts of middle east: all are found, for example, in the copies of Ibn Bakhtishu's Manafi al-Hayawan.

In particular, the unicorn chasing the elephant is a recurrent theme of Islamic art, which echoes legends reported by al-Jahiz and al-Qazwini in particular; it is found on lustrous tiles in the thirteenth century in Iran and on bas-reliefs in Konya during the same period.

Rounds of fish including other animals become a motif according to E. Baer at the beginning of the fourteenth century, as shown by an Iranian brass inlaid metal bowl, dated around 1305.

Several elements would indicate a certain sense of humor on the part of the artist, such as the absurd inscription on the flat, or the presence of a small rabbit represented from the front, for short, which seems to look directly at the viewer.

The tall-stemmed flowers bearing rows of leaves fare parallel to Baghdad's painting of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, such as the Pseudo-Galian's Book of Antidotes, which dates to 1199.

Most researchers, including DS Rice, agree that some of the scenes depicted specific events,[46] while some elements, such as genuflection, have no equivalent in other Islamic art and might be purely decorative.

However, Rachel Ward argues against this interpretation by pointing out that Mamluks do not have a tradition of portraiture or 'history painting' in their metal art, and that such representation would be inconceivable without an inscription that identifies the scene.

She also believes that looking to date the basin based on the costumes represented is absurd, as Mamluk artists worked more abstractly rather than direct representation.

E. Knauer supports his point by looking at the unusual character of the double coat of arms; he identifies the lion-shaped one at Baybars, and evokes the idea that the tamga-shaped one would be that of the young circumcised, Berke.

For her, each rider in the medallions represents an aspect of the furusiyya, an equestrian art highly valued in the Mamluk period; the entire Baptistery would be an evocation of tournaments (maydân) taking place during ceremonies at the time of Sultan Baybars.

[55] On the contrary, R. Ward believes that the Baptistery is an early example of Venetian-Saracenic metal, made in Syria for a European sponsor in the mid-fourteenth century.

According to her; on the contrary, the absence of monumental inscriptions to the titles of a major character shows that this is a work done for a foreign sponsor because it would be labelled if it was meant for local nobility.