Focus on Baptistère de Saint Louis and discuss the History.
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 It does not appear on the inventory of goods Charles V erected before 1380, but it is mentioned around 1440 in an unpublished inventory of the treasure of the Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes.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 LouisThe 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 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. 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 served at the baptism of St. Louis, and sees a work of the first half of the 13th century, because of fleur-de-lys which seem to have been added in the 13th or 14th century in Europe.
In 1930, a stylistic analysis by Mehmet Aga Oglu is the first to recognize the baptistry as a work of Syrian workshop, and the date of the first quarter of the 14th century. 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. 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.
Napoleon Eugene Harun al-Rashid Mehmet Aga Oglu Aubin-Louis Milin Henry Barbet de Jouy Louvre Charles V Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes Charlemagne Louis XIII Chambord castle Louis Napoleon Bonaparte