The Bartholdi Fountain, located on the Place des Terreaux in Lyon, is a spectacular masterpiece by the famous sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, who also created the Statue of Liberty. This monumental 21-tonne sculpture depicts a cart pulled by four impetuous horses symbolising the great rivers of France, hence its name ‘The rivers and springs going to the ocean’.

The sculpture was originally intended for the city of Bordeaux, but the mayor abandoned the project. It was nevertheless built and presented by Bartholdi at the 1889 Universal Exhibition, where it won over the mayor of Lyon, who acquired it for his city and inaugurated it a little later in its current location, in 1892.

The dynamics and energy of this work, with its spirited horses rising from the water, capture the power of the natural elements.