WIP · World in Pocket

Bailey Fountain

New York, Italy

Bailey Fountain

Bailey Fountain is an outdoor sculpture in New York City at the site of three 19th-century fountains in Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, New York, United States. Renovated in 1956 and 2005-06, the 1932 fountain was funded by philanthropist Frank Bailey as a memorial to his wife Marie Louise Bailey. After

1974 thefts, some sculpture elements were stored for safekeeping. The bronze Art Deco design of the Bailey Fountain consists of six monumental figures beginning with the top two, a man representing Wisdom with his left hand on the tiller steering the ship of Life and a woman representing Felicity with her left hand holding a cornucopia. Below them are two other statues, one a chubby standing child helping to shoulder that cornucopia, while the second is a laughing Greek mythological figure called Nereus who is the eldest son of Pontus the Sea and Gaia the Earth. To the sides of the fountain are the two remaining figures, Nereids, female sea nymphs (and daughters of Nereus), with their upper torsos emerging from the water. Their heads are thrown back as they trumpet with conch shells, and their fish tails twist in the background.

Listen to the audio guide for Bailey Fountain Free on WIP — starts by itself when you arrive, even with the screen off

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