LaFayette Fountain

Lafayette Fountain is an 1887 fountain by sculptor Lorado Taft, in the grounds of the Tippecanoe County Courthouse in Lafayette, Indiana. The fountain is composed of a number of tiered bowls with a marble statue of the Marquis de LaFayette on top. He holds a sword next to his heart in his right hand and has a cape draped over his left arm.

LaFayette Fountain
ArtistLorado Taft
Year1887
Typemarble
Dimensions4.9 m diameter (16 ft);
figure 6 ft × 3 ft × 3 ft (1.83 m × 0.91 m × 0.91 m),
pedestal 12 ft (3.7 m) and 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) diameter
LocationLafayette, Indiana

History

Taft wrote about this early commission (perhaps his first) of his that:

"The LaFayette" was about the first order I had in Chicago as I arrived there with high hopes – and little else – the first day of 1886. It was a copy of Bartholdi's "LaFayette" in New York City that was required of me and one tiny photograph of that figure was all that was given to me for data. I wonder at the temerity of youth, but I had to have the money and that supplies unlimited courage.[1]

The fountain cost $2,200.

figure

The Inscription reads: (On eight panels on pedestal, raised letters:)

(panel 1:)
In HONOR OF GENERAL
MARIE JEAN
PAUL ROCH YVES
GILBERT MOTIER
DE LAFAYETTE
BORN IN
AUVERGNE
FRANCE
1757
FOUGHT WITH
WASHINGTON
FOR AMERICAN
INDEPENDENCE
1776 TO 1782
DIED 1834

Water for the fountain was originally supplied by a 230-foot well beneath it, which was installed in 1857 and whose waters were believed to have curative properties. The well was capped in 1936, and the fountain's water now comes from elsewhere.[3]

Sources
  1. WPA Writers Program, Indiana: A Guide to the Hoosier State, Oxford University Press, NY, 1961, p.464-465
  2. "Marquis de Lafayette, (sculpture)". SIRIS
  3. Taylor, Stevens, Ponder Brockman, Indiana: A New Historical Guide, Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis, 1989, p. 489

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