La fontaine des Quatre-Parties-du-Monde
Tucked away at the edge of the Jardin du Luxembourg, where the city softens into leafy promenades and quiet benches, stands one of Paris’s most striking yet overlooked monuments: La Fontaine des Quatre-Parties-du-Monde. Also called the Fontaine Carpeaux or Fontaine de l’Observatoire, it’s a bold 19th-century celebration of art, science, and global symbolism.
The fountain is a collaboration of four artists, most famously Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, whose signature dynamism brings life to the sculpture. Four women—representing Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas—dance together as they hold aloft a bronze celestial globe ringed with zodiac signs. Beneath them, sea creatures spout water into a wide basin, adding movement and music to the scene.
But beyond its beauty lies deeper meaning. Africa, one of the figures, wears a broken chain on her ankle—a powerful, if subtle, reminder of the ongoing legacy of slavery and the politics of freedom in the 19th century. It’s art with something to say.
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