# Lion dit "de Monzon" > Unknown bronze-founder, Cordoban Caliphal workshop - Late 10th - 11th century (Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba); an older reading still found in some literature places it in the 12th-13th century (Almohad/Nasrid period) > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/cordoba-caliphal-bronze-workshop/monzon-lion-louvre/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-15 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Unknown bronze-founder, Cordoban Caliphal workshop - **Date:** Late 10th - 11th century (Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba); an older reading still found in some literature places it in the 12th-13th century (Almohad/Nasrid period) - **Medium:** Cast bronze (lost-wax/cire perdue), with chased and engraved decoration added after casting - **Dimensions:** H. 31.5 cm (max) x L. 54.5 cm x W. 13.7 cm (max); reported weight approx. 10.826 kg - **Object type:** Islamic metalwork - **Period:** Islamic Spain (al-Andalus), Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba - **Current location:** Musee du Louvre, Departement des Arts de l'Islam, Paris - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A hollow bronze lion cast in a Cordoban workshop of the Umayyad Caliphate, found in 1849 in the ruins of a castle at Monzon de Campos in Castile, three hundred kilometres and several centuries removed from the Andalusian court that made it. It passed through the hands of the Spanish painter Mariano Fortuny, the Parisian collector Eugene Piot and the banker Louis Stern before entering the Louvre by bequest in 1926-27.What it was for is not settled. Cataloguers have long called it a fountain spout, water fed through the belly and out the open mouth; the art historian has more recently questioned whether the hydraulics work at all, and pointed instead to a documented Andalusian tradition of lion-shaped water-clock automata, with a companion inscribed mortar found alongside it in 1849 as physical support for that reading. Both positions remain live.Its findspot has sometimes been mis-stated as Monzon in Huesca, a different castle entirely; every primary source checked for this record places the discovery firmly at Monzon de Campos, Palencia, and this record corrects the confusion rather than repeating it. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **Late 10th - 11th century** Manufactured in a Cordoban workshop, Umayyad Caliphate `[disputed]` (origin) Cordoban manufacture is the accepted position since Gomez-Moreno's 1951 comparison with Madinat al-Zahra bronzes, superseding Migeon's 1927 Fatimid proposal. The precise date within the Cordoban tradition (Caliphal vs. later Almohad/Nasrid) is still argued in the literature; this record follows Fellinger's epigraphic redating to the late 10th-11th century. - **11th century (approx.)-1849** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) No owner or location is documented between the object's manufacture in Cordoba and its recorded discovery centuries later and hundreds of kilometres away, in Christian Castile at Monzon de Campos, Palencia (not Monzon, Huesca). How and when it travelled north, and whether it was deposited during the Reconquista-era transfer of the site or brought later, is not recorded in any source consulted. - **1849-1872** Reported as Miguel Jalon, Marquis of Castrofuerte (landowner at the find), and separately as a pharmacist from Valladolid `[disputed]` (discovery and early private ownership) Found in or near the ruined castle at Monzon de Campos, Palencia, alongside a bronze mortar carrying the identical Kufic inscription, itself now in the Museo Arqueologico Nacional, Madrid. Published in the 19th century by Pascual de Gayangos. One account names the Marquis of Castrofuerte as the landowner at the time of the find; a separate strand of the literature names a Valladolid pharmacist as the seller to Fortuny in 1872. These accounts were not reconciled in the sources consulted. The Museo Arqueologico Nacional was reportedly offered the piece and declined to acquire it. - **1872-1874** Mariano Fortuny y Marsal, painter `[documented]` (purchase) Acquired in 1872 by the Catalan painter and collector Mariano Fortuny y Marsal for his studio and collection. Some later sources conflate his dates with those of his son, the textile and fashion designer Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo (1871-1949); this record follows the standard art-historical identification of the painter Fortuny y Marsal, who died in 1874. - **1874-1875** Estate of Mariano Fortuny y Marsal `[documented]` (death and dispersal) Fortuny died in 1874; his collection was dispersed at auction at the Hotel des Ventes, Paris, in 1875. - **1875-1890** Eugene Piot `[documented]` (purchase) Acquired at the 1875 Fortuny dispersal sale. Lent by Piot to the Exposition Universelle of 1878 in Paris, displayed in the oriental gallery at the Trocadero. - **1890-1926** Louis Stern, then Madame Louis Stern `[documented]` (purchase and widowed ownership) Purchased by the Parisian banker Louis Stern following Piot's death in 1890, reportedly at another Hotel Drouot sale. Louis Stern himself died in 1900; his widow, recorded in Louvre documentation as Madame Louis Stern, lent the piece to the 1903 Exposition des Arts Musulmans at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, curated by Gaston Migeon and Raymond Koechlin. - **1926-present** Musee du Louvre, Departement des Arts de l'Islam `[documented]` (bequest) Entered the Louvre by the bequest of Madame Louis Stern. The Conseil des Musees Nationaux approved the acquisition on 5 July 1926; the decree formalising it followed on 9 May 1927. No purchase price applies to a bequest. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **1875** Unnamed Paris auction house (Hotel des Ventes), - Estimate: Not published in sources consulted - Hammer: Not published in sources consulted - With premium: Not published in sources consulted - Sale of the dispersed Fortuny y Marsal collection following his 1874 death, at which Eugene Piot acquired the lion. No price for this specific lot was found in any source consulted for this record. - **1890** Hotel Drouot, Paris, - Estimate: Not published in sources consulted - Hammer: Not published in sources consulted - With premium: Not published in sources consulted - Sale following Eugene Piot's death, at which Louis Stern acquired the lion. No price for this specific lot was found in any source consulted for this record. ## Open questions - Fountain or automaton: the object's original function is not settled in the literature. The traditional fountain-spout reading and Gwenaelle Fellinger's automaton hypothesis, tied to al-Muradi's lion water-clocks, both remain live positions. - Exactly whose hands the bronze passed through between its 1849 discovery at Monzon de Campos and its documented 1872 sale to Mariano Fortuny: the Marquis of Castrofuerte and a pharmacist from Valladolid both appear in the record, and this record could not reconcile the two accounts into a single confirmed chain. - No published alloy or elemental composition study of the lion itself was located, unlike its closest comparandum the Pisa Griffin, which has undergone modern non-invasive metallurgical analysis. - Whether the lion and the companion mortar recovered with it in 1849, now separated in different Madrid and Paris collections, were ever physically joined as parts of a single mechanism, or merely stood near each other when found. - Whether the piece is currently on public display: the Louvre's own Atlas location data places it in Room 185 of the Departement des Arts de l'Islam, while a separate collections listing describes it as not currently on display. This record could not resolve the discrepancy. - The precise date within the Cordoban tradition remains argued rather than settled: some sources retain a 12th-13th century Almohad/Nasrid reading against Fellinger's more recent late 10th-11th century epigraphic redating. ## Sources - [1] Musee du Louvre, collections database, "Lion dit 'de Monzon'", OA 7883. - [2] Wikipedia (French), "Lion de Monzon". Consolidates the dating, attribution and function-dispute scholarship (Migeon 1927, Monneret de Villard 1949, Gomez-Moreno 1951, Fellinger, Contadini) and the al-Muradi automaton hypothesis. Flagged as a tertiary aggregator for replacement with the primary publications it cites. - [3] Wikipedia (Spanish), "Leon de Monzon". Consolidates the discovery, dating debate and acquisition chain to the Louvre. Flagged as a tertiary aggregator for replacement with primary sources. - [4] Panorama de l'art, "Lion dit de Monzon", analytical entry by Sylvie Cuni-Gramont, covering physical description, weight, dimensions and the tail/aperture construction detail. - [5] COPE / TreceTV, "El misterioso hallazgo de unos campesinos en Palencia que hoy deslumbra en el Louvre", June 2025 feature covering the discovery, the Marquis of Castrofuerte, the Museo Arqueologico Nacional's declined purchase, and the acquisition chain through Fortuny, Piot and Stern to the Louvre. - [6] Anna Contadini (ed.), The Pisa Griffin and the Mari-Cha Lion: Metalwork, Art and Technology in the Medieval Islamicate Mediterranean, Pisa: Pacini Editore, 2018. Cited for the Cordoban-workshop comparison between the Pisa Griffin and Andalusian bronzes, and for the modern XRF/LIBS technical study of the Griffin used here as a contrast case for the Monzon lion's untested alloy. - [7] Muslim Heritage, "The Clocks of the Andalusian Ibn Khalaf al-Muradi", on the Kitab al-asrar fi nata'ij al-afkar and its lion water-clock automata, cited for the technical and textual background to the automaton-function hypothesis. - [8] Wikidata, Q55354061, "Fontaine Le Lion de Monzon", for the Louvre ARK and Atlas identifiers and structured location data. - [9] CastillosNet, "Castillo de Monzon de Campos", for the history of the findspot castle and its documented Islamic-era context. - [10] The Rijksmuseum Bulletin, "The Horse Aquamanile in the Rijksmuseum: A 'New' Andalusian or Fatimid Bronze", cited for the scale of the surviving corpus of Islamic bronze lavation vessels (approx. 21 known examples) within which the Monzon lion sits. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. 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