Anyone who has walked the streets of Paris has run into them at least once: those ornate fountains scattered across the city, in public gardens and on street corners. Each one is a green fountain featuring four cast-iron women, draped in togas, their backs turned to a thin trickle of water. These fountains have an English name, the “Wallace Fountains,” but there’s no doubt they’re an icon and an integral part of the Paris landscape. The fountains were installed all over Paris at the end of the 19th century, and there’s an interesting story behind them.
The History of the Wallace Fountains
Before the fountains appeared, clear, drinkable water wasn’t something you could count on. The Franco-Prussian War, launched by Napoleon III in 1870, ended in a crushing defeat for France and humiliating surrender terms. Food shortages were widespread, and the massive Prussian bombardments left the city in ruins, both physically and administratively. On top of that, the war stirred up broad resentment and social division, especially among the lower classes, unrest that peaked in the violent, anarchist uprising of the Paris Commune.
When the war ended and the violent street fighting died down, many buildings across the city had been destroyed, including the aqueducts that carried water into town. Needless to say, the price of water shot up, and Parisians had to pay exorbitant sums for it, which hit the working class and the poor the hardest.
Their drinking options were limited: take the murky, filthy water of the Seine for free, pay a steep price for water from clean sources, or turn to alcohol, which didn’t cost much more than clean water. Many Parisians couldn’t resist the temptation and went with the last option, and fumes of alcohol hung over the city.
Against this backdrop, a new fashion for philanthropy caught on among wealthy French bourgeois, who dug into their own pockets and threw their support behind initiatives and organizations like the Red Cross and the Salvation Army. Many of these bourgeois did it for their own glory, but a few acted out of genuine altruism.
One of these benefactors was Sir Richard Wallace (1818-1890), an English art collector who inherited his fortune (yes, that’s the same Wallace behind the Wallace Collection in London). Wallace became hugely popular with the French public during the Prussian siege of the city, when he helped buy supplies and donated significant sums to fund new ambulances.
Sir Richard Wallace felt the community had a moral duty to provide decent water to the people and keep them away from the bottle. The wealthy Englishman didn’t hesitate to help rebuild Paris, and he funded the construction and installation of fountains that would supply drinking water to everyone, fountains that still carry his name today.
Most of the project’s cost fell on Wallace’s own broad shoulders, though he was smart enough to bring the city of Paris on board too. Wallace wanted the project finished without delay, so he turned to Charles Auguste Lebourg, a well-known sculptor from Nantes whose talent he was already familiar with.
Wallace gave Lebourg a set of guidelines. First, the fountains had to be visible from a distance, but their height couldn’t, under any circumstances, disrupt the harmony of their surroundings. They also had to be pleasant to look at and easy to use, and all of this at a price that would allow for many fountains to be installed around the city. The materials used to build them (cast iron) had to withstand the weather and need little upkeep. The city of Paris decided where the fountains would go and their color (a dark green meant to blend in with the gardens and tree-lined boulevards).
Where Can You Find These Fountains?
Wallace originally donated 50 fountains to Paris, and today the count stands at 67, most of them still in use, in public parks and on sidewalks. Over the years, more fountains were added elsewhere in France, including in Nantes (the sculptor’s hometown), in Bordeaux and in other places. A few fountains were bought by famous artists and wealthy art lovers, among them Maurice Chevalier and Brigitte Bardot.
Over the years, the fountains made their way well beyond France. Today, Wallace fountains can be found all over the globe: in Europe, Asia, South America, and the Middle East, including Jordan and Israel. Two fountains donated by the city of Paris stand in Place de Paris in Haifa and on the Ben Yehuda pedestrian street in Jerusalem.
Today you can find Wallace fountains in four different models, and even in other colors (in the 13th arrondissement and on Boulevard de Ménilmontant). The two original models, designed and funded by Wallace himself, were the large model and the wall-mounted model, followed later by the colonnade model and the small model.
The basic large model is the most common one across Paris. Lebourg designed it drawing on the Renaissance Fontaine des Innocents near Les Halles in Paris. This standard fountain, which rises to a height of 2.71 meters, is made up of four caryatids (columns sculpted in the shape of a woman) representing simplicity, kindness, charity, and sobriety.
The caryatids stand on an octagonal base and support a pointed dome decorated with dolphins, from the center of which water trickles down into a basin protected by a grille. The caryatids’ backs face a central column, and each one differs from the others: in the pose she strikes, the bend of her knees, and the look of her tunic.
By the way, caryatids originally come from the Erechtheion temple on the Athenian Acropolis, where six columns sculpted as standing women supported the structure on their heads. The burden symbolized the humiliation of the women of Karyai, who had sided with the Persians against Athens, after which all the city’s men were killed and its women enslaved. The caryatids were meant to represent the shame of the women of Karyai, carrying on their heads the lesson of betrayal and the weight of disgrace (the roof of the structure).
It’s not clear why Wallace chose these shamed caryatids, but either way the cast-iron women sheltered the fountain with their bodies and made room for personal drinking cups to be used. In their own gentle way, they may have also kept horses and other animals from sticking their noses in to drink from the fountain.
In any case, the look of the caryatids was inspired by the sculpture Les Trois Grâces by Germain Pilon, the Renaissance artist favored by Catherine de’ Medici. The second model Wallace commissioned was the wall-mounted model, and as its name suggests, it’s set into walls. In this model, a trickle of water flows from the mouth of a naiad (water nymph) into a small basin held up by two columns. Sadly, only one example of this model survives, on the outer wall of the Jardin des Plantes, at the corner of Rue Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Rue Cuvier in the 5th arrondissement.
Of the two remaining models, the first is the small, simple model, with a push button much like today’s water coolers, best known to the mothers who bring their kids to play in the city’s many public gardens.
And then there’s the elegant colonnade model (a row of columns), which is basically similar to the large model, except that to cut production costs, the caryatids were swapped out for four plain columns. Only two examples of this model remain as well, one at Place de Barcelone in the 16th arrondissement and the other on Boulevard des Ternes in the 17th arrondissement.
The Wallace Fountains are still in use and remain hugely popular with Parisians and tourists alike. The outside is pretty, and in this case, what’s inside is just as good: clean, free drinking water that quenches the thirst of everyone passing by.
In that sense, Sir Richard Wallace fulfilled his hopes and achieved two goals at once: he lent a hand to those in need, and he made a real contribution to the look of the city. Wallace stayed loyal all his life to France, the country that had warmly embraced him, and he was buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery.
So when you’re out wandering the streets of Paris, keep an eye out for these pretty fountains and have a drink of their clear water. Just remember that the fountains only run from March 15 to November 15, since the pipes would freeze otherwise. And don’t forget Sir Richard Wallace, the man who quenched the thirst of the people of Paris.
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