Fontaine des Quatre-Parties-du-Monde

You are standing before the Fontaine des Quatre-Parties-du-Monde, also known as the Observatory Fountain. It serves as a monumental entrance to the Luxembourg Gardens and occupies a precise spot on the meridian of Paris, directly facing the city observatory. Commissioned under the Second Empire, the bronze masterpiece was a collaborative project led by architect Gabriel Davioud, with its most iconic feature sculpted by the renowned artist Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux. While the fountain is celebrated for its intricate bronze figures, you might notice something curious about the central group. Carpeaux depicted four women spinning in a ring to support a celestial sphere, each representing a continent. You will find Europe, Asia, Africa, and America here, but Océanie is notably absent. When this work was conceived in the late nineteenth century, European mapping of the world still excluded that region, leading the artists to focus on the four continents they considered to be the primary parts of the global stage.