Fontana Delle Tartarughe or Fountain of the Tortoises

Late 19th - 20th century

FONTANA DELLE TARTARUGHE or FOUNTAIN OF THE TORTOISES (Italian, late 19th century) attributed to the Chiurazzi Foundry, Naples, with modern castings made by Skylight Studios (2001). The rim of the upper bowl is decorated with bronze figures of turtles, carved into the marble along the exterior of the bowl rim are faces from whose open mouths issue fountain jets. Surrounding the central column of the fountain are four bronze male figures with one arm raised upward and one foot placed on a dolphin, the open mouths of the dolphins spout water into carved marble shell basins. Based on an original by Taddeo Landini (1550-1596) in the Piazza Mattei, Rome, c. 1584. Other late 19th century copies of the same fountain were commissioned for Elm Court (the Stone Estate in Lenox, MA), the Carhart Estate (Tuxedo Park, NY), Far View (Livingston Estate Bar Harbor, Maine), Cranbrook Art Academy (Bloomfield Hills, Michigan), John & Mable Ringling Museum (Sarasota, FL), and the Crocker Estate (in Hillsborough, CA) - now relocated to Huntington Park, San Francisco, CA.

Italian

bronze

marble

Purchased by Thre Preservation Society of Newport County, 1962.

PSNC.1875