Bartholdi Fountain

Washington, District of Columbia, United States

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Public art

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

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The Bartholdi Fountain is a 30-foot cast-iron fountain by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, made for the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Bought in 1877, it was re-erected in 1932 in Bartholdi Fountain and Gardens, across Independence Avenue from the US Botanic Garden Conservatory in Washington.

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Bartholdi Fountain

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38.88713° N, 77.01267° W

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The story

Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi is best known for the Statue of Liberty, but one of his other works stands in a garden near the foot of Capitol Hill. The Fountain of Light and Water, usually called the Bartholdi Fountain, is a cast-iron sculpture 30 feet tall and weighing more than 15 tons, according to the United States Botanic Garden.

Bartholdi made it for the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The Botanic Garden says it was cast in Paris by A. Durenne, with caryatid figures 11 feet high, and that Bartholdi saw its combination of iron, gas light and water as symbolically appropriate for a modern city. It was intended as an allegory of light and water. Three sea nymphs seem to hold up the large basin, three young tritons hold seaweed above it, and the crown at the top resembles a crenellated city wall.

After the exposition the fountain was bought for $6,000. The Botanic Garden says Congress bought it at the suggestion of the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted; the Architect of the Capitol says the United States government did, and that this was half its estimated value. It was moved to Washington in 1877. The Architect of the Capitol calls it one of the first nighttime attractions in the city, and says it was fully electrified in 1915. The two agencies date the lights around the basin differently: 1886 for the Botanic Garden, 1885 for the Architect of the Capitol.

When the Botanic Garden relocated in 1927 the fountain was dismantled; it was re-erected at its present site in 1932. It was restored in 1986 and again from 2008 to 2011. The Botanic Garden says it turned 150 in 2026.

The fountain stands at the centre of Bartholdi Fountain and Gardens, a two-acre garden across Independence Avenue from the Botanic Garden Conservatory. The Botanic Garden recommends visiting in warm weather to enjoy the fountain, and after sunset for the lights.

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WHAT TO EXPECT

A cast-iron fountain with sea nymphs, tritons and spouting fish at the centre of a two-acre garden with benches, tables and a kitchen garden. The US Botanic Garden says the lights around the basin are lit at night and suggests warm weather for the fountain.

ACCESS

Bartholdi Fountain and Gardens is an outdoor garden on the US Botanic Garden grounds, across Independence Avenue from the Conservatory in Washington, DC, managed by the US Botanic Garden under the Architect of the Capitol.

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Peace Monument

Washington, District of Columbia

The Peace Monument, also called the Naval Monument, is a 44-foot marble and granite memorial to Navy personnel who died in the Civil War, carved by Franklin Simmons and erected in 1877 to 1878 in the circle west of the Capitol at Pennsylvania Avenue and First Street NW.

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0.4 km away

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