Meet the Expert: Celebrating 150 years of the ‘Wallace’ fountains

Good afternoon everybody and thank you for joining Barbara Lambesis and myself for this talk in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Wallace Fountains. In Britain Sir Richard Wallace is best known for the Wallace Collection at Hertford House in central London. It was bequeathed to the British nation in 1897 by his widow Lady Wallace, probably following his wishes. In France however, Wallace is renowned for two styles of drinking fountain that he presented to the city of Paris. The first one was installed in the Boulevard de la Vallette on the 30th of July 1872. It was a freestanding model like the one on the right in which you see the water descending from within the dome. Almost immediately the French press began referring to the fountains as Les Wallace and that is how they've been known ever since. The celebrations in France this year marking the 150th anniversary of Wallace's gift will culminate in a number of events being held in Paris between the 22nd and the 25th of September. Barbara Lambesis, who as Olly has mentioned is the co-founder and president of the Society of the Wallace Fountains, has been instrumental both in promoting the Wallace Fountains to the wider public and facilitating the celebrations in Paris. So I'm privileged and delighted to have you with me today Barbara. In the first part of this presentation I'm going to talk about how Wallace came to give the first 50 fountains to the city of Paris and their design. After that I'll ask Barbara to tell us about the Society, the global presence of the fountains and their continuing production. Richard Wallace, who you see on the left in a sort of caricature from 1875 as a Wallace fountain, he was born in London in 1818 and died in Paris in 1890. Although English he was brought up in Paris from the age of seven and only moved to England in his early 50s, late in 1871 or early in 1872 following the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian war. He returned to France regularly and spent much of the last three years of his life in Paris. Wallace was the likely illegitimate son of a Francophile British aristocrat and long-term Paris resident Richard Seymour Conway, 4th Marquess of Hertford, who you see here seated on the left. On inheriting his title in 1842 the 4th Marquess of Hertford became one of the wealthiest British aristocrats of his age. He also became perhaps the greatest art collector of his time. From the 1840s onwards Wallace, who you see seated on the right, bought at auction on Lord Hertford's behalf while also assembling a notable art collection of his own which he was obliged to sell to settle his debts in 1857. Wallace cared for Lord Hertford through ill health until the latter's death. At his chateau Bagatelle, and they're sitting in the garden of Bagatelle in the photograph here, Bagatelle is in the Bois de Boulogne, very close to Paris or on the outskirts of Paris, Lord Hertford died there on the 24th of August 1870 as Prussian troops were approaching Paris. The year 1870 to 1871 was catastrophic for France which saw the siege of Paris by the Prussians before France faced a humiliating defeat in the Franco-Prussian war as well as the terrible civil strife of the Commune. So here you see a photograph of the state of some buildings as a result of the siege. Unexpectedly inheriting Lord Hertford's unentailed property, Wallace found himself in possession of great wealth, enormous wealth, at a time of immense misfortune in Paris. He was of a strongly philanthropic disposition, not only providing donations to causes he supported, but also taking an active personal role in facilitating them. And here you see him in the centre there at the table, chairing a meeting of the British Charitable Fund in Paris on the 10th of March 1871. He threw himself into charitable work to help all people in Paris who had suffered severe hardship as a result of the war. The gift of the fountains was one of a number of his charitable initiatives at this time, but it was his most enduring legacy in France. For much of the 19th century the quality of drinking water was very poor in both London and Paris. The problem of access to drinking water was especially acute among the poor, who often lived in very basic conditions. In 1872, the year in which Wallace saw the installation of the first Wallace fountains, 40% of the buildings in Paris were not plumbed into a water supply, the majority in poorer neighbourhoods. As a result, cholera, dysentery and other waterborne illnesses were rife. And so here you're seeing some water carriers who sold water that was sometimes contaminated to people who didn't have a water supply in their home. This is the only extant photograph of the very desolate slums that encircled Second Empire Paris. The population of Paris grew substantially through the 19th century, but as a result of the massive redevelopment of central Paris, which was instigated by Napoleon III during the 1850s and 1860s under the management of Baron Haussmann, many workers were attracted to come to Paris to earn through working on the building sites. They lived in great poverty on the outskirts, and this illustrates that point, and like many other residents of Paris they lacked private access to running water. After the destruction of the Franco-Prussian War, which included the loss of aqueducts supplying Paris with water, the need for sources of drinking water was all the more pressing. As an alternative to impure water, people drank alcohol, which was less expensive, but it often resulted in alcoholism. And the consequences of this trajectory are really exemplified by Émile Zola's novel La Sommoire, which was published in 1877, and that was very much a high point of this problem of alcoholism. These posters that you see here, I think, illustrate the campaigning that went on to get people to understand that there was a real danger in drinking too much alcohol. They're both a bit later, but they're the continuation of a problem, a long-term problem. Sir Richard Wallace understood how alcoholism can tear away the social fabric, and he was sympathetic to the temperance movement, which advocated abstention or minimal consumption of alcohol. Wallace had long demonstrated concern about the supply of good quality drinking water. Already around 1850, when he was living in Boulogne-sur-Mer, a fellow Englishman, Alfred Kent, was involved with major hydraulic work there, connected with the improvement of the supply of water to the town's fountains. When in 1853, Kent founded a private company to supply spring water, Wallace became a shareholder, and he went on to retain a keen interest in the company for many years to come. When Wallace decided to donate drinking fountains to the city of Paris, he commissioned the sculptural models from the French sculptor Charles-Auguste Lebourg, whose image you see on the far left here. The two men had known each other since at least 1869, because in that year, Lebourg produced the terracotta bust of Richard Wallace that you see second from the left in the slide. In 1872, the year when the first Wallace fountains were installed in Paris, the Wallace collection's bust of Lady Wallace, which you see third from the left, was made by Lebourg. It was exhibited that year in the Paris Salon, presumably made in the same year. Around the same time, Lebourg, probably it was around the same time that he produced the posthumous bust of the fourth Marcus of Hertford that you see on the far right. Wallace offered two models of drinking fountain to Paris, 40 examples of the freestanding caryatid model, known as the grand model, and 10 examples of a wall-mounted model, which you see on the right. While Wallace paid for their design and production, the city of Paris bore the cost of their plumbing, installation and maintenance, as well as deciding on their locations. It's often stated that Wallace gave Lebourg very specific instructions for the design of the fountains, and even produced some initial sketches of what he wanted, but there's no archival evidence to support this. However, it's apparent from the iconography and style of the fountains that his profound knowledge and appreciation of French culture, especially that of the French Renaissance and the 18th century, were critical to the final designs of the fountains. The fountains were made by the Val d'Auzner foundry in Haute Marne in northeast France. The freestanding fountains are made from more than 80 parts. They were stamped at the top of their octagonal pedestals with the foundry's name on one side, and the name of the sculptor, and year of their initial production on the other side. So at the top here you see on the left the Val d'Auzner stamp, and on the right the stamp giving the sculptor's name, Charles Lebourg, and SC for sculptor, and then below that 1872. Fountains with these markings were made prior to 1931, when the GHM foundry took over the fountain's production. Fountains manufactured after 1931 are marked at the base with GHM markings, and you see them down at the bottom there on the left and right. The fountains are traditionally painted dark green to blend in with the other Parisian street furniture, such as the colons moris that you see in the centre, and our advertisement stands, and the newspaper kiosks, both of which have domes not dissimilar to the Grand Modèle fountain, which is 2.97 metres in height. Their colour was intended to harmonise with the city's greenery, and that image on the right is quite interesting. It doesn't show colour, but I chose it because it shows one of the kiosks in the Boulevard des Italiens, right outside the and that was absolutely close to where Wallace was living in Paris. The fountains were hugely popular, and people queued to drink from the two zinc cups which were attached to them by chains. Although two cups only were provided with the fountains, there were four fixings for chains on the freestanding model, which provided flexibility with regard to the positioning of each fountain within the street. If you look at the two prints which were published very shortly after the initial fountains were installed, you can see on the left-hand side with the freestanding model, two people drinking from the cups, and also two people drinking from cups on the wall-mounted model in the centre. On the right, a detail of one of the fixings that the chain would go through, and you can see the kind of grotesque ornament. Barbara describes it as an elephant head, and you can see it does look a little bit like the curved bit with the opening is reminiscent of an elephant's trunk. The main reason for the enduring success of the freestanding fountain model is its beautifully proportioned, intimately scaled and classically inspired design, which exemplifies French taste and tradition. The main focus of the design is the four caryatid figures. You see three of them, of course, on the left-hand side. They bring to mind the best-known caryatids from the ancient Greek Aretheion in Athens, and you see the replacement caryatids in Athens on the right. Le Bois' caryatids are less austere figures, evoking 18th-century French rococo curvaceousness and lightness of touch. Wallace and Le Bois would have known many examples of caryatids in central Paris. These figures were popular in France from the Renaissance right through to the early 20th century. With his love of Renaissance decorative arts and sculpture, Wallace would have admired these important mid-16th and early 17th-century examples all at the Louvre. And on the left, you see inside the Louvre, a museum of course now, the Salle des Caryatids, with caryatids by Jean Goujon of the mid-16th century. And then in the centre, the Three Graces, which were part of a funerary monument to contain the heart of King Henri II by Pilon of, again, mid-16th century. And then on the right-hand side, the Pavillon de l'Horloge, in the court carré of the Louvre, where you can see, again dating to the earlier 17th century, and you can see the four caryatid figures on the top level of the building there. Caryatids were especially fashionable on the facades of buildings in the later 19th century. And in fact, Le Bourg himself had already created a pair on the facade of a building in the 9th arrondissement in 1865. And it's shown in the centre here, the building is shown in the centre here, and just to the right of it, a detail showing one of those caryatids. And then you see on the left-hand side, some caryatids flanking a doorway above the doorway from 10 years earlier. And then on the right-hand side, an entrance to Garnier's opera, contemporary with the Wallace Fountains, and again you see these caryatid figures flanking the door. The elegance of the Wallace Fountain caryatids is enhanced by the fact that their heads are surmounted by ionic capital volutes. These scrolled volutes give a softer impression than the more austere square capitals above the caryatids' heads of the Erechtheion. Comparing the fountains in tablature, and you see a detail of the one, the example in the forecourt here at Hertford House, the Wallace Collection, comparing the fountains in tablature with examples of ionic columns in tablature, which you see on the left from Palladio's I Quattro Libri, published in 1570, we can see that while part of the fountain's appeal lies in the variety of its ornament, it also satisfies, because of our familiarity with the language of classical architecture, which is familiar through having been incorporated into public buildings in Europe since the Renaissance. Here you see details of the four caryatids on the Wallace Fountain at Hertford House. The hair, face and neckline of each one differs from the others. They're also distinguished by the positions of their legs and feet and the drapings of their tunics. Each head is numbered at the back. Traditionally, the figures are said to personify the human virtues of simplicity, charity, goodness and sobriety. In the absence of either documentary evidence for this, or identifying the true attributes, I'm not convinced by this theory. But Barbara, I'm delighted to draw you in here, because I know that our opinions differ about this. Tell us what your view is. Well, I could find in my research, no evidence that the virtues ascribed to the four caryatids have ever been anything different than the four that you just mentioned. Now, whether Wallace himself, who was very interested in symbolism on the fountains, designated the virtues for each of them, remains to be seen. Because you're right, there is no paper trail, so to speak, to prove how they got this attribution. But whether it was legendary, whether it was the press who did it, through the years, only those four virtues have ever been attributed to the fountains. So I tend to feel that there is some evidence that that's so, and some evidence that Richard Wallace was involved with that, because I don't think the general public probably would have described sobriety if they were going to come up with a virtue. But we know how important that was for Richard Wallace, because he saw how alcoholism was devastating the social fabric of the poor and of their families, and leading to consequences of ill health. So he strongly believed that one needed to have clean drinking water as an alternative, and that it should be free and available to everyone. And so his philosophy is carried out in those four virtues, of kindness and of generosity, of meeting a community, of living simply, drinking water, and remaining sober so we could do our best work in life. When his intention, as we'll talk about a little bit later, is to make them terribly symbolic. And he did incorporate classical motifs and motifs from nature and from Christianity, because he wanted the people who used the fountains to not only quench their thirst, but to nourish their soul, and to go away from the fountains, understanding a little bit about how to become a better human being, how to be a better human being. I like to believe that it was Wallace who named them, but as you say, there's no evidence to prove that. Thank you very much. So people will have to, we hope people will go and have a good look at them and make up their own minds. Several motifs on the Wallace fountains are traditionally depicted on fountains. Dolphins, and on the Wallace fountains here, I'm showing you details from the one here at Hertford House, there are dolphins just below the finial on the dome, and also on the pedestal in conjunction with a triton. So dolphins are frequently represented. Traditionally, they were thought to be protectors of all things water related. And they're associated on the pedestal with the tridents. Both dolphins and tridents are attributes of Neptune, the god of the sea in classical mythology. There are also shells on the fountain, here you see an example, and water plants. I hope you can see I'm showing you with my cursor, a bulrush. And of course, these motifs are repeated. There's another bulrush around the pedestal. And so shells, water plants and tridents are often depicted on fountains. And you'll also see that there are around the dome, there are other stylized fleur-de-lis. And they're evocative of the quintessentially French culture to which these belong. Sir Richard's taste, knowledge and immersion in French Renaissance and 18th century art must surely have profoundly influenced in shaping, been really influential in shaping the design of the Wallace fountains. Comparison between, I'm showing you one of a pair of candlesticks in Wallace's collection, and elements of the fountain's design, testify, I think, to the depth of his influence. And you can see this pair of fountains, like another pair in the Wallace collection, has the carotids supporting the kind of vase shape into which the candle would be placed. If you look down at the base of the candlestick, you see that it's got the sort of fish scale motif that we found on the dome of the Wallace fountain. We've got the dolphins and they are there because when this pair of candlesticks were made in 1781, they were made in celebration of the birth to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette of the heir to the throne, who was known, his title was Dauphin, which of course is dolphin. So that's the reason for them on this pair of candlesticks. And then you also see there are vertical rows of pearls, and we find these pearls running down from the shells on the pedestals of the fountain. So all these, I think all these motifs coming together, they were very apparent to Wallace as kind of motifs that he wanted to evoke, partly because he was so familiar with these kind of motifs in some of the really wonderful works of art in his collection. Suzanne, if I might just read for a second. If you notice the trident on the pedestal of the fountain, it is pointing up towards the dome. And if you know the mythology of, I'm going to go back to the Greek mythology of Poseidon, not Neptune, Poseidon. The story goes that when he threw his trident down into the earth, up would spring a sprout of water. So the interesting thing here is that the trident is pointing up to the dome, which is where the source of water is. It's not pointing to the ground. So the water is coming from the dome and the trident is pointing up to it. Also the shell, the scallop shell, represents the Christian concept of baptism and renewal. And I think that Richard Wallace and his wife were rather devout. And so it doesn't surprise me that that Christian symbolism is there. And the pearls are often thought to represent wisdom. And so you see Wallace used the symbols from classical mythology, from Christianity, and from nature to really design something that was beautiful and hopefully meaningful as well. Thanks very much for adding those insights. I think that's really enriching to think about also the other symbolism in there. There is a wealth of material to think about in connection with these fountains. So here, I think this is a lovely slide that you put together, Barbara. Very, very jolly and colourful. And it would be great if you could tell us something about these five fountains, because they're all in their own ways, a little bit different to what we're used to. Yes, indeed. The first one on the left, which is the traditional fountain coloured green, is not a working fountain. And it can be found inside the Pantoff covered marketplace. It's one of those old traditional covered markets that still exist today. And inside you'll find vendors of food and fish and vegetables and, you know, all kinds of wonderful, wonderful things. And this particular fountain is right in the centre of the covered marketplace. It does not function. So my thought is that it must be there purely for decorative or promotional reasons. Interestingly enough, there's another non-public, non-working fountain in the parking lot of the And another one in the courtyard of Guild Hartford British Hospital. So there are fountains that are not open to the public and are not dispensing water, but they are still around Paris, delighting everyone with their beauty and their significance. Now on the other side, you see four coloured fountains. They are all in the 13th arrondissement and they were placed there at New in the year 2011. The whole district was undergoing some renovation and rejuvenation and the city decided that they would put fountains in, but they would want to give a little vibrancy, a little colour and a little attention to them, as much to bring attention to the fountain as to bring attention to the newly redeveloped area that they are now located in. So they painted them these bright colours. Their intention was to paint them green again in the year 2021, 10 years later. But they have remained their original colour. The purists, the traditionalists, of course, hate them because they think all walls of the fountain should be the old traditional green. But I find that they're quite vibrant, quite interesting. There are three more in Paris in the 20th arrondissement that are painted a different colour, one red, one yellow and one blue. So there are seven total of the 109 fountains in Paris that are not green. Our position is that we're not so concerned about what colour they are, but that they're well painted because without being painted and having that paint freshened regularly, the fountains being made of cast iron can erode and come under disrepair. So for us, it's more important that they're painted, not necessarily what colour. It's really, really interesting. Going back to what you said about the other two non-functioning fountains at the Hertford British Hospital and at the British Embassy, do you just happen to know when they came to go there or why? Well, I don't have the exact date, but I am very, very sure that one of them was to pay tribute to Richard Wallace because he's such an iconic gift to the city and so associated with the city of Paris. But we don't know a lot about what happened to many of the fountains that were at one time on the street, the older fountains, and had been removed. They turned up in auction houses, personal people bought them. So tracking down the history of everyone is an effort. Yeah, but you've got some sense of the history from looking at the parts and the markings. That's provided you with quite a lot of information, which is fascinating. And you've also, of course, been instrumental in bringing the public's attention and appreciation to the Wallace fountains in recent years. You've done that really in two very, very significant ways. And one was through co-founding the Bilingual Society of the Wallace Fountains. And I think Ollie may have put the link to the Society's website in the chat, or if he hasn't yet, hopefully he will by the time we get to the Q&A. And also, the other way in which you've really brought the fountains to people's attention is through your bilingual book of 22 half-day Paris walks to discover the fountains. So I wonder whether you can tell us a little bit about how you, an American entrepreneur, came to develop a fascination for the Wallace fountains. Well, I'm retired and my plan was to spend part-time in Paris each year. And I started coming to Paris for three months in the fall of 2013. And, of course, the first year I went to every museum I could possibly find. And so in the second year, I discovered that the joy of living in Paris is the joy of discovery. And that comes when you're wandering the streets. You never know what you're going to see. You look up, you see an interesting architectural motif, you run across a little garden. You know, everywhere you look, you're surprised and delighted by a new discovery. And one day, I ran into a Wallace fountain. And I was so taken back by its sculptural significance, its beauty, its size, its utility. But I knew nothing about that. And when I got back to my apartment, I found a tiny little picture of one in the bottom of a page of a guidebook. Well, that was the clue I needed. And I went to the internet, started looking up and realized that they had a fascinating history and that the donor was a fascinating individual. And that there was scattered all over the city. So I decided that I would put a purpose to my wandering. And that a couple days a week, I would go out and find four or five of the fountains. And I took my camera, and I took my notebook, and I decided I'd document it. I did have no idea why I would do that or if I would ever use the material. But I knew from past experiences that sometimes down the road, you kick yourself. You haven't done the documentation, taken the photograph while you had the chance. So the first year, I found 38 of them. And by then, I am now kind of hooked on finding the rest of them and learning as much as I can about them. So my research increased. The next year, I found the remaining fountains and hours in the libraries, learning all about them. And realized that at the end of this time, that I had so much fun just finding these fountains on foot and going into neighborhoods and areas of the city that I would never have had a reason to go to, that I really discovered the real Paris. I came across little churches and parks and great shops and ateliers and wonderful little gardens and vibrant neighborhoods. And it was just such a wonderful experience because going to find the fountains gave a purpose to my wandering, gave a purpose to my walking. And as I mentioned, took me to places I otherwise would never have had a reason to go. And when I was done, I thought, oh my, I had so much fun doing this. And it was such a rewarding experience. Certainly other visitors and residents might want to do the same thing. Using finding the fountains as a way to discover the city. And certainly I haven't yet had the opportunity to do the walks, but I've read the book, the descriptions of the walks, a couple of times. And you really bring each area that the walk covers to life, telling us really interesting information about some of the main sites or the most fascinating sites that people will encounter during the walk. So it's even just fascinating to read without being in a position to go on the walk. Do you have a favorite Wallace Fountain? Well, you know, they're all my children. As a good mother, even if I had a favorite, I probably would not publicly say, well, this is my favorite. Actually, no, I don't have a favorite. Primarily because they're all molded from the same mold. They're all pretty much exactly alike. So what makes them different is their location, which gives them a different ambience, gives them a different setting, a different kind of feel because of what they're surrounded by. And of course their color can change. And even among those that are painted green, there are several different shades of green that you'll find them in. So those are the only real things that distinguish them. I love them all and I feel really attached to them all. They're all my children. So I really have to say I don't have a real favorite. Thank you. And maybe you can tell us something about how you came to be a co-founder of the Society for the Wallace Fountains and when it was set up and something about its mission. Well, the Society of the Wallace Fountains was registered and established in October of 2018. And its mission is to promote, preserve, and protect the Wallace Fountains of Paris and to recognize and to encourage philanthropy in the spirit of Richard Wallace, where Private Well partners with government, public, and non-profit organizations to work for the common good, to perpetuate that spirit of Richard Wallace's generosity and kindness. And also to try to position the Wallace Fountains as a symbol of universal, equal access to clean drinking water. We know going forward that water is going to be a huge issue, a huge global issue for humanity, particularly because of climate change. And water is essential to life, all life, but it is particularly essential to human life. So we hope that we can use this beautiful, artistic, and symbolic image of the Wallace Fountain to be the symbol of how public and private and non-profit and international partnerships can be developed to make sure that all human beings have universal, equal access to clean drinking water going forward. So that's part of our mission. We are educational and informational as an organization. We spread the word. We encourage others who have the capacity to make changes to do that. We developed and registered the organization also so that we could have a platform to publish the book about the fountain and also to develop and maintain a significant website, which would be sort of the central place where people can find knowledge and information about the fountain and their significance in the world. So that was the primary focus of it, and that's what we have been able to do. We honestly believe that if you go out and find one or two fountains or even four or five or maybe all of them, you've invested some of your time and your interest in finding the fountains and learning about them, and you become interested in their preservation. We'd like to see them be around for another 150 years. That's a wonderful hope. Let's hope that comes to be. We'll find out just before we finish a little bit about how the fountains are evolving, remaining the same but evolving for our times. The enthusiasm in France for celebrating the 150th anniversary of the installation of the fountains in 1872 has really been fantastic, I think. I know that the Society has been very much at the forefront of plans together with the Ville de Paris. It would be great if you could tell us about some of the highlights of the celebratory events, particularly focusing on the forthcoming weekend of the 22nd to 25th of September. The City is going to do an outdoor exhibition on the Saint-Feliz Garden, and it will highlight all aspects of the fountains and pay tribute to Richard Wallace. There are a number of organized guided walking tours that will be taking place. One is tonight, one is next weekend and a few weeks down the road in which people can join a group and go hunting fountains. There's a game going on now. There are 50 Wallace fountains in the City that have a QR code on them. You go up to it, you get a little information about the fountain, you take a quiz, your answer is recorded, and if you get X number of answers correct, you can receive a small prize which you collect at the exhibition. There's a two-day conference going on at the Museum Cornevalet on Thursday and Friday, and I believe, Suzanne, you're going to be giving one of the presentations at that. Yeah, the last one, I think. The last one. And then, of course, a major event is the Wallace Fountain Award Dinner, which is taking place at the residence of the British Ambassador, Paris. We are going to present the first Wallace Fountain Award to the philanthropists Ariane and Lionel Sauvage, who have demonstrated outstanding philanthropy for decades and are very deserving of being recognized for their contributions to many aspects of human life. And do you want to add something relating to our terracotta bust that we saw earlier of Richard Wallace? Yes, and I forgot to mention that Bagatelle, which was the home of Richard Wallace and the place that he died, is under renovation through the Manzard Foundation, and a bust of Richard Wallace, which is a replica in bronze of the terracotta one that is at the Wallace Collection, will be unveiled on Saturday night at a private reception, and it will be on permanent display, paying tribute to Richard Wallace and all that he did for the people of Paris. He became the providence of the poor and the benefactor of Paris for his enormous kind philanthropy and charity during those critically difficult years of 1870 to 1872. So he truly is a champion who never quite got his full recognition, and we hope this bust will be his first start. Thank you. And here we've got the cover of the second edition of your Find the Wallace Fountains in Paris book, and then on the right hand side the map that just shows you the locations of the different walks, from number one right at the centre of Paris to number 22 more on the outskirts. And of course the reason you had to publish the second edition is that you first published the first edition in 2019, and already there are several more fountains, partly in connection with the 150th anniversary, but as well as the book, which is small format, glossy, and really would be I think very nice and comfortable to go on the walks with, you do also have downloadable options on the Society's website. So you can go and do the walks either with the book or downloading the information and the guide from the Society of the Wallace Fountains website. Let me very just quickly say that the Wallace Collection gift shop has the book for anybody who may want to get a copy, or you can get it through our website. Yeah, thank you, thank you. These two fountains are both in walk one, so right in the centre of Paris in your book, and they're both in the Flower and Bird Market in Place Louis Lepin, in Paris Four. So they're the first that we encounter in your walking guide. Do you happen to know why they're also the only two that are designated as historic monuments? Well very quickly, it's because, you know, infrastructure is always changing in the city, as transportation needs change, the additions of widening of streets for automobile traffic, now narrowing of streets for bicycle traffic. The place is in constant renovation and change, and once you become designated a national monument, you can't move that monument. So these two are in the Flower Market, it's very unlikely that they will ever, well they will never be moved from these locations, but all of the other fountains are subject to being moved because of the necessity of making changes to keep the city workable, to get the new infrastructure in, to do what they need to do. So they have, the city has flexibility to move them. Thank you, yeah that's really interesting. And then there's sometimes confusion about whether these two models of fountain were part of Wallace's gift to Paris, or have some association with him. Maybe you could enlighten us about that, and why and around when they went into production? Well very very quickly, it was because the city was, neighborhoods were writing to the city and demanding that they have a fountain as well, and asking and begging for the fountains, and the city wanted to find a cheaper, less expensive way to meet the need. So this, the fountain is more of a hybrid, the one on the right, it does pick up, it is the design by the city of Paris, the city of Paris pressed on it, and it picks up a lot of the symbolic motifs you find on the other Wallace fountains. It is not a Wallace fountain design, a Wallace design, it was designed by the city, but it tried to coordinate, and they do call it a Wallace fountain. The one on the left was again a cheaper model of the grand, the freestanding model. 30 of those were commissioned at the end of the 1800s, 1890s, but the public did not receive them well. They wanted the ones with the periodic, and so of the 30 that were commissioned, and in the city at one time, there are only two that remain. Again, we list them as one of the Wallace fountains, and the family of Wallace fountains, but they are not actually a true Wallace fountain. Thank you, and I know we need to move quite smoothly towards the Q&A, but I just wonder whether you can tell us briefly how it is that the GHM foundry now produces the Wallace fountains, and on the left you can see staff there with a newly completed fountain, and in the centre a schematic drawing of the plumbing for a Wallace fountain, and we'll mention what's on the right in a moment. Well, Richard Wallace ceded the rights to reproduce the fountains to the foundry, which at the time the fountains were made for Paris was Valdon foundry. You know, over the course of years, name changes and mergers and acquisitions took place, and the company that has morphed into the name GHM bought out Valdon in 1931, and so they merged, and they acquired all of the rights to reproduce them, as well as many of the moulds. So that is how that has progressed, and that's why the markings on the fountains have changed. Great, thank you, and on the right of the slide you see some notices that are attached to fountains from the Eau de Paris, who are responsible for the fountains of Paris. Can you tell us briefly about how the fountains, what those show us, those images, and how the fountains have been adapted so that they're fit for purpose today? I know the attached cups were removed in 1952 for reasons of hygiene. Well, you know, now water conservation is very important, so they have installed, first of all as an experiment, and now they're moving forward doing it on all the fountains. A push button, which you see at the bottom on the left-hand side, so that instead of a steady stream of constantly flowing water, you can dispense only what you need. Also, with climate change and the heat making, sometimes Paris summer is unbearable. They are working on installing on several of the fountains a misting system that will squirt out a soft mist of water as you approach it, and that, of course, the evaporation of the mist cools the air around you, so it's to quench your thirst and cool down your body. So they're trying to use today's technology to retrofit the old style of the fountain and keep them beautiful for today. That's great, and at the bottom right, what we're seeing is a breakdown of the mineral content. You know, the city of Paris water company, Eau de Paris, wants to promote the use of the water and drinking of the water by saying how safe it is, but also to describe where the source is, where it's coming from, and what is the mineral content of the water that you drink from the fountain. They're all perfectly safe. They're all potable. They're the same as the water you get from your tap in your home, so we encourage people to drink from them without fear. Thank you very much. They're also turned off in the winter, aren't they? They don't operate in the winter? Yes, so that plumbing doesn't freeze and damage. That's great. Now our last slide. Such, of course, is the success of the freestanding model that Wallace fountains can be found in far-flung countries of the world, such as China, where you see the precautions taken with a Wallace fountain during the pandemic. Could you just tell us briefly some of the reasons for the presence of the Wallace fountains in various countries in the world, please, Barbara? Well, the foundries took this concept of decorative cast iron, which they invented and they were expert at, they took it to the international exhibition, where people came from all over the world, and because the foundries had the right to resell them to anyone, there were a lot of orders being taken in the late 19th century from the international exhibition, where the foundries were using them as a sample of their work. So that's how a lot of them ended up in South America. Others were just the city gifts from the city of Paris to other cities in the world. They were commemorative gifts, and a lot of them, we know, were simply purchased and taken from one location to another. So they all have their story. We're trying really hard and hope that in the future to be able to do some research and be able to tell the story of the more than 150 of them that are outside of Paris. Thank you. This talk is one component of the Wallace Collections Meet the Experts celebration of the Wallace Fountains. There's also a YouTube video about the Wallace Fountain in the Wallace Collections Forecourt. The video is called Experts Choice, the story of the Wallace Fountain at Hertford House, and it explores why the fountain was made for a site in London's East End in 1904, and how it came to move to our courtyard in 1960. Many thanks, Barbara, for joining us today. It's been great to benefit from your knowledge, insights, and especially your enthusiasm. Thank you, too, for joining us. Next time you're in Paris, I hope you'll discover lots of Wallace Fountains, but as Barbara explained, you may well spot them in other locations in France and the wider world, too. Thank you.