Manneken Pis, Bronze fountain statue in Pentagon district, Brussels, Belgium
The fountain features a small figure about 60 centimeters tall who urinates into a basin, set in a shallow wall niche near a street corner a few blocks from the Grand Place. Crowds often gather around the sculpture to take photos or admire whichever costume it happens to be wearing.
The first fountain, recorded in a 1451–52 document on Brussels' water lines, poured water into a double rectangular stone basin. The city council commissioned a bronze replacement in 1619 from Jérôme Duquesnoy the Elder, probably cast and installed in 1620, while Daniel Raessens remade the column and basins. The 1695 French bombardment spared the statue but damaged its pipes.
Visitors from around the world bring gifts and costumes to the fountain, and city officials decide which outfits the figure may wear. The approved wardrobe grows continually and reflects the international attachment people feel toward this small bronze boy.
The street Rue de l'Étuve sits about five minutes on foot from the Grand Place, with the nearest metro stop at Bourse. Because the figure is small and the crowd can be thick, arriving early in the morning or late in the evening works better.
The statue's wardrobe holds around a thousand costumes, shown since 2017 at the GardeRobe MannekenPis museum on the same street. In 1747, after a foiled abduction by French soldiers, Louis XV gave the figure a gentleman's outfit with a sword and the Cross of Saint Louis. In 1817 the thief Antoine Licas broke the original into eleven pieces; it was repaired and screwed to a base marked "1620 – REST 1817".
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