Focus on Baptistère de Saint Louis and analyze the Form and style.
Basins with flared edges had existed since the Ayyubid period: for example, the Arenberg Basin, dated around 1247–1249 and preserved at the Freer Gallery of Art, or the basin in the name of Salih Najm ad-Din Ayyub preserved in the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo. However, these basins often have a fairly smooth and curved transition zone. With its strongly streamlined profile, angularity, as well as its remarkable dimensions, the Baptistery of Saint Louis moves away from this type. It belongs to a group of basins of similar shape and size, 50 of which two bear the name of Sultan An-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qala'un, one is dedicated to a Sultan of Yemen and another was made to Hugh IV of Lusignan. 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. Bloom.The general style of the basin is a continuation of previous works. The friezes of animals is an element that predates Islam. 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. In the same way, the association between the griffin and the sphinx is well established at the time of the creation of the Baptistery. Only the serpentine dragon could have been a novelty that arrived in Egypt with the Mongol invasion; however, they are found in the Syrian zone from the Seljuk 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. For her, these motifs "evoke – it seems – dreams about distant seas and foreign whose waters bring wealth and good fortune. " 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.In the same way, decorative foliage parallels older works. The spiral motif is predominant in Egypt: it is found for example on ivories and Fatimid woodwork. In Ayyubid metals, as on the Basin of Sultan al-'Adil II signed by al-Dhaki, the foliage – as well as the calligraphy of the signature – are very similar to those on the Baptistery. 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. There are no new motifs in the Baptistery that are not found in other works. Brought by the Mongol invasions, the group of metalworks (except those of LA Mayer) have a large number of peony flowers in particular. The only peonies of the Baptistery are present on a napkin worn by a character, which could demonstrate his Mongol origin. The five-petalled florets surrounding the blazons in the internal medallions find immediate parallels in the medallions of the other basins in the group.
But the most unusual missing element on the Baptistery is the absence of a large inscription in Thuluth, characteristic of the art of this period. The other basins of the group, with the exception of that of  the L. A. Mayer collection, that are unfinished and undated still have large Thuluth inscriptions. J. M. Bloom as R. Ward and S. Makariou both note this incongruity; R. Ward and S. Makariou argue it could be due to Christian ownership of the Baptistery. However, the basin in the name of Hugh de Lusignan in the Louvre bears a large inscription in Thuluth calligraph.
Islamic art Muhammad ibn al-Zayn Louvre Manafi al-Hayawan