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| the whole fountain |
The Fountain is the largest terracotta fountain in the world, like anywhere else in the whole world. It is 46 feet tall and 70 feet wide across it's basin. You can find it in Glasgow Green behind the Peoples' Palace. It was renovated and moved in 2005 after falling into disrepair, at a cost of (cough) £4 million.
It was designed by Arthur Edward Pearce and sculpted by Pearce and students at the Lambeth School of Art. It was given to Glasgow by Sir Henry Doulton and first unveiled at the Empire Exhibition in Kelvingrove Park in 1888. It was designed to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887.
It has five tiers to it. Going from the top to the bottom -
Queen Victoria (this is not the original which was apparently struck by lightning in 1894. This is a free replacement from Sir Henry).
Four kneeling maidens emptying pitchers of water
The bottom tier has four individual sections each representing the four corners of the British Empire
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| India |
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| Canada |
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| Australia |
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| South Africa |
At the bottom of the terracotta basin is the inscription, "Let Glasgow Flourish" with the Glasgow crest.
It's beautiful of that there is no doubt and as fountains go, it is a stunner. I might prefer it if it was upside down though, just not sure how that would work.
Always strikes me as odd when things are made of terra cotta, cuz the most common terra cotta item I see is pots, which break incredibly easily. But then I think of terra cotta roofs, and they seem to hold up ok... Maybe there are different "formulas" of terra cotta made.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for these lovely photos taken on a sunny Scottish day.
ReplyDeleteLove the fountain and the detail for each Commonwealth.
We are Australians and my husband is the designer's great grandson. We stood with great pride in front of the fountain on a cold (well freezing actually) day in Dec 2010 and took photos of the frozen fountain.
Arthur Ernest Pearce, the designer, was a prolific artist and designer. He worked for Doulton for 55 years until his retirement in 1928.
Thought you might be interested in his work which included:
- designing many of the Doulton pavilions for each of the International exhibitions,
- altar panels in St Clements, Manchester,
- illuminated albums presented to Sir Henry commemorating the 10th anniversary of employing females at Doulton and another on the celebration of Sir Henry's 90th birthday,
- interior items in the summer home of Sir Henry Doulton
- ceramic fire places, humidifiers, vases, pot plant holders, silver topped ice buckets, candle sticks
- a ceramic vase that was thrown,decorated and presented to Queen Victoria at the Liverpool exhibition in 1886. We own one of about 5 copies of the original vase.
-hundreds of hand painted postcards that were painted on his numerous weekend and holiday jaunts and posted to family members
- decorated lampshade, room divider (screen) and other personal household items
- numerous sketchbooks and art works (landscapes, botanicals and a few portraits)
- He lived in Paris for some months c1883 attending an art school and was the teacher of well known artist Robert Bevin.