Fontaine des Trois Grâces, Fountain in Place de la Comédie, Montpellier, France
The Fontaine des Trois Grâces rises from a circular basin edged with a low metal rail. Three draped female figures stand close together on a round pedestal above a moss-covered mound of grey rock, where a pale putto sits on the right. The present group is a resin cast of Étienne Dantoine's marble, set on two superimposed basins with stone rims.
Created by sculptor Étienne Dantoine in 1776, the fountain was initially placed in Place de la Canourgue before moving to Place de la Comédie in 1793.
The three Graces stand back to back, each holding a garland of roses; the group is named after Aglaé, Euphrosyne and Thalie, daughters of Zeus in Greek myth. Putti, some playing with a turtle, sit in the rocky base. The original marble group is now in the hall of the Opéra Comédie.
The fountain stands in the open on Place de la Comédie, a short walk from the Opéra Comédie, whose entrance hall displays the original marble group. The present basins, stone kerbs and metal rail date from the January 2003 renovation, which added cascades and crossed jets. At night blue lighting marks the kerb, the putti and the outer channel.
The basin now on the square is not the original: the 1797 basin was moved to the Domaine de Vissec in the Gard, near Valmagne Abbey. The Fabre Museum keeps Dantoine's 1773 plaster reduction of one of the fountain's children.
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