Fontaine des Quatre-Saisons

The Fontaine des Quatre-Saisons features a central figure representing Paris flanked by two reclining statues that embody the Seine and the Marne rivers. Edme Bouchardon spent seven years carving these limestone reliefs into the facade of a building on Rue de Grenelle. When the fountain finally began flowing in seventeen forty-five, the poet Voltaire wrote a letter to a friend complaining that the structure was far too grand for the pathetic trickle of water it provided to the neighborhood.