CAST FROM MODELS BY MARIO RUTELLI, EARLY 20TH CENTURY

The present bronzes are reductions of two of the four groups featuring on Sicilian sculptor, Mario Rutelli's celebrated Fountain of Naiads, on the Piazza dell'Essedra (renamed Piazza della Repubblica), Rome. The four groups represent the mythological sprites believed by the ancients to have inhabited all waters: the ocean nymph riding a wild sea horse; the lake nymph astride a swan; the river nymph riding a river monster; and the nymph of the underground waters reclining on the back of a dragon. When it was unveiled in 1901, the overt sensuality of the fountain caused a sensation amongst the population of Rome, to the extent that the authorities were forced to temporarily erect a fence around its perimeter in an attempt to deter onlookers, young men primarily, from 'admiring' the shapely naiads.