# When the Owner's Name Becomes the Object's Name > Across this archive the objects that carry a personal name are almost never named for their makers. Several are signed and dated by the hand that made them and catalogued under a nineteenth-century owner, a donor, or the fund that paid. > The Study - 2026-08-24 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/study/when-the-owners-name-becomes-the-objects-name/ ## Key points - The archive's medieval Islamic metalwork inverts the usual evidence problem. The Baptistere de Saint Louis is signed six times by Muhammad ibn al-Zayn, the Blacas Ewer is signed by Shuja ibn Mana al-Mausili and dated April 1232, and the Bobrinski Bucket names four men in its own inscriptions; all three are catalogued under a European owner's surname. - One of those names is chronologically impossible. The Louvre dates the Baptistere to 1325-1340 and Louis IX died in 1270, which is why the museum's own catalogue title is Bassin dit Baptistere de Saint Louis, the basin so-called. - A name can commemorate the money rather than an owner. Cleveland's Wade Cup is named for the J. H. Wade Fund that bought it, and the twelve-sided ewer at 1945.27 was bought from the same fund a year later and carries no such name. - A name can move with the owner and then move back. Thomas Coke acquired the Leonardo manuscript in 1717 and it became the Codex Leicester; Christie's sold it in 1994 under the catalogue title The Leonardo da Vinci Codex Hammer; the Uffizi exhibited it in 2018 as the Codex Leicester again. - The naming reaches the institution itself. The Getty's own record for the Statue of a Victorious Youth lists Getty Bronze as an alternate title, so the museum's name is now catalogued as a name for the object. ## The personal name in a title is rarely the maker's ## The archive's Islamic metalwork inverts the evidence ## A name can be chronologically impossible ## Sometimes the name commemorates the money ## A name that moved with the owner, and moved back ## What to do with an owner-name in research A collector's surname in an object's title is a record of who last mattered to the institution that holds it. Read as provenance it is evidence, dated and specific. Read as identity it hides a signed and dated maker behind a man who bought the thing six hundred years later, and in this archive it does so most often to the objects that documented themselves best. ## Questions **Did Saint Louis own the Baptistere de Saint Louis?** No. The Louvre dates the basin to 1325-1340 and Louis IX died in 1270, so the object was made at least fifty-five years after his death. The Louvre's own catalogue title is Bassin dit Baptistere de Saint Louis, the basin so-called. The name comes from its later use in baptising French royal children from 1606. **Who was the Wade Cup named after?** The J. H. Wade Fund, the Cleveland Museum of Art endowment that paid for it in 1944, not an owner. Jeptha Homer Wade II never held the cup. A twelve-sided ewer bought from the same fund the following year, accession 1945.27, carries no personal name in its title, so the practice is not a rule. **Why is the Leonardo manuscript sometimes called the Codex Hammer?** Because Armand Hammer owned it from 1980 to 1994 and it was renamed for him. Christie's sold it on 11 November 1994 under the catalogue title The Leonardo da Vinci Codex Hammer. After Bill Gates bought it at that sale the older name returned, and the Uffizi exhibited it in 2018 as the Codex Leicester. **Should a collector-name be dropped from a catalogue entry?** No. It is the index under which a century of scholarship sits, and it is itself a provenance datum pointing at a named owner and a datable transfer. The discipline is to read it as a fact about ownership rather than about the object, and to search under the maker, the inscribed date and the place of manufacture as well. ## Sources - [1] Musee du Louvre, collections record for Bassin dit Baptistere de Saint Louis, inventory LP 16, maker Muhammad ibn al-Zayn, dated second quarter of the fourteenth century, 1325-1340. - [2] British Museum, collection record for the Blacas ewer, museum number 1866,1229.61: the curator's comment states that the ewer is named after the Duc de Blacas whose collection was acquired by The British Museum in 1866, the maker's inscription reads Shuja ibn Mana al-Mausili, and the production date is April 1232 (Rajab 629 AH). - [3] Ruba Kanaan, The Bobrinski Bucket, Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, University of Michigan, published 28 August 2020, with the object dated 559 AH / 1163 CE and citing Richard Ettinghausen, The Bobrinski Kettle: Patron and Style of an Islamic Bronze, Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6 (24), 1943, pp. 193-208. - [4] The Cleveland Museum of Art, collection record 1944.485, The Wade Cup with Animated Script, credit line Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund. - [5] The Cleveland Museum of Art, collection record 1945.27, Twelve-sided Ewer with Sphinxes and Human-Headed Inscriptions, credit line Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund. - [6] Robin Halwas Ltd, bookseller's description of the Christie, Manson and Woods catalogue, The Leonardo da Vinci Codex Hammer: the property of the Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center, Los Angeles, California, sale of 11 November 1994, recording acquisition in Italy in 1717 by Thomas Coke, later 1st Earl of Leicester, and family possession until 1980. - [7] Gallerie degli Uffizi, exhibition record, Water as Microscope of Nature. Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester, 30 October 2018 to 20 January 2019. - [8] Museo Galileo, The European circulation of the Codex Leicester, online exhibition, recording that the future Earl of Leicester acquired the codex and took it to Florence to have a copy made, about 1717. - [9] J. Paul Getty Museum, collection record for Statue of a Victorious Youth, Object Number 77.AB.30, listing Getty Bronze among its alternate titles. - [10] Victoria and Albert Museum, The Ardabil Carpet, museum article, for the museum's practice of printing an owner-derived popular title alongside the museum number 272-1893.