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3 Elephant

This bronze elephant was once part of a fountain that stood in the gardens of Schloss Hessen, a castle in central Germany near the city of Magdeburg. The castle belonged to the Prince of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, who commissioned the fountain in 1607, and while the fountain itself unfortunately no longer exists, there are prints that show us what it once looked like. The fountain apparently had five tiers, each decorated with sculptures of different animals that spouted water, with this elephant placed on the second tier from the top. Exotic animals like this were particularly popular decorative motifs among Renaissance-period royalty and nobility.