The building, built at the end of the 18th century with Renaissance elements, was restored over a year at a cost of 4.5 million euros.
Jewels of the Renaissance, one of the oldest fountains in Paris, known as the Innocents, with the profile of an imposing Greek temple supported by cascading basins, was put back into water on Thursday after a year of work and a month before the Olympic Games.
A few steps from Beaubourg and a stone’s throw from the canopy of Les Halles, tourists and onlookers will once again be able to observe the sculptures on the facades of the fountain erected in 1549, and above all the five reliefs of nymphs which made its reputation.
Read alsoExhibition: the autopsy of the Fountain of the Innocents at the Carnavalet museum
Reproduced in resin to preserve the originals from the deterioration of time and pollution, they are “the masterpiece” by Jean Goujon, “one of the greatest artists of the French Renaissance”, explains to AFP Emmanuelle Philippe, from the Conservation of Religious and Civil Works of Art (COARC) of the City of Paris. “It was high time to restore its shine because it was in very poor condition,” greets, from Place Joachim du Bellay where the 17 meter high fountain stands, the City’s heritage assistant Karen Taïeb, who has led the project since the first studies in 2018.
Pediments, entablatures and ornamental columns were renovated and for certain parts rebuilt, as were the stones of the basins and the hydraulic system of the fountain, the white limestone of which had notably suffered from corrosion. The entire restoration cost 4.5 million euros, including 600,000 paid by the Drac. The surroundings of the fountain were also renovated and planted for an additional million.
Symbol of old Paris
Originally a corner fountain adjoining the vanished church and cemetery of the Innocents from which it takes its name, the monument has traversed Parisian history. Inaugurated a few decades before the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, it was moved several times in the Halles district and had a façade and three nymphs added on the eve of the Revolution.
“They have XVIIIe and in the 19the century, it was a sign of Paris with the same impact as the Eiffel Tower today,” reproduced on plates or embroideries of the time, recalls Emmanuelle Philippe. Since April, an exhibition dedicated to this fountain has been held at the Carnavalet Museum until August 25, 2024. The original nymphs by Jean Goujon are exhibited there.
