Lower basin and base: red granite; Four figure groups: Istrian marble; Basin grotesques: bronze; Base: concrete
Type:
Sculptures-Fountain
Sculptures-Outdoor Sculpture
Sculptures
Owner/Location:
Administered by New York Zoological Society Bronx New York 10460
Located Bronx Zoo Department of Exhibition and Graphic Arts 185th Street & Southern Boulevard Fountain Circle Parking Bronx New York 10460
Date:
Early 18th century. Installed 1902. Relocated 1910. Reinstalled 1910
Notes:
Save Outdoor Sculpture, New York, New York survey, 1993.
Summary:
The base of the fountain, an enormous bowl, rests in the center of a concrete foundation and drainage basin which is enclosed by a low granite curb. On the rim are four large shells each containing a cherubic urchin astride a sea horse. The shells are each supported by either a mermaid or a neptune figure. Between these groupings are four bronze "grotesque" heads. Rising from the center is a shaft composed of 3 elements: a bed of rocks on which three sea monsters sit, their serpentine tails entwined around the stem which supports a saucer; the saucer contains an ornately carved stem which supports a smaller saucer which holding a goose from whose outstretched beak water spouts skyward to trickle down over the saucers into the basin thirty feet below.
