Wall Fountain and Basin
Medium
Tin-glazed earthenware and polychrome enamels
Dimensions
Fountain: 47.7 × 39.4 × 26.7 cm (18 3/4 × 15 1/2 × 10 1/2 in.); Basin: 23.9 × 44.5 × 39.1 cm (9 3/8 × 17 1/2 × 15 3/8 in.)
Classification
earthenware
Department
Applied Arts of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
158981
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This fountain, sculpted in high relief and painted in bright enamel colors, exemplifies both the ambitions of the pottery established at Sceaux, south of Paris, and the exuberance of the Rococo style of mid-18th-century France. A triton (a mythological sea deity resembling a merman), a nymph, and a scampering child pose on a rocky, shell-encrusted outcrop that projects over a dolphin-like sea creature from whose open mouth water flowed. Underneath, a large shell-shaped basin enriched with reeds ...