Delphinbrunnen in Dresden, Germany

The Delphinbrunnen stands on Dresden’s Brühlsche Terrasse, a raised promenade above the Elbe. Two broad staircases frame a 100-square-metre pool, 14 metres wide, which holds the central sculpture of a putto riding a dolphin. Water arcs from the dolphin’s mouth into a scallop shell and then cascades into the basin, whose rim is set with radiating coral patterns. Two smaller jets, reinstalled in 1992 after being traced on old copper engravings, play within the pool. A delicate wrought-iron balustrade in rococo style encircles the whole.

Created in 1750 by Pierre Coudray, the fountain’s figures were carved by Johann Gottfried Knöffler. The putto, the winged love-god, and the dolphin once belonged to the vanished Second Belvedere garden on the Jungfernbastei. All the stonework is sandstone, while the basin’s lining mixes shell and rock motifs. After wartime damage in 1945, the fountain was rebuilt by 1954, with Werner Hempel fashioning a Cottaer sandstone copy of the rider; the original now rests in Rammenau’s Baroque palace garden.

Visitors find the restored fountain set against the terrace’s sweeping views over the river. Beneath the pool a concrete slab seals the former cannon court, and young lime trees now line the foreground. A small underground chamber houses the pump system by Eberhard Grundmann, while Peter Bergmann’s reconstructed railing gleams in the evening. Rarely lit floodlights allow the dolphin and putto to be seen after dark, their silhouettes reflected in the still water.