Design for a Wall Fountain 1550 - 1620

This ink on paper drawing, "Design for a Wall Fountain," now residing at the Met, comes to us from an anonymous hand. The architectural fantasy is populated with bodies, and faces that both invite and repel, demanding a closer look. Framing this fountain are two figures, each reaching upward, perhaps in supplication or perhaps simply embracing the cool cascade of water. Above them, grotesque masks leer, guarding the structure. And below, two figures kneel, transfixed by a giant clamshell. The fountain is a place of paradox: of display and access, of the public and the private. This tension is visible in the blend of classical forms and grotesque imagery. In its play with water, bodies, and the architecture that contains them, the fountain becomes a site of potential transgression, of the senses unbound. It reminds us that design is never neutral. It encodes power, desire, and often, a very strange and compelling beauty.