The Milkmaid Fountain (The Girl with a Pitcher) (an ensemble of the Catherine Park)

Categories / Tsarskoe Selo and town of Pushkin. The digital chronological reference book/Monuments of history and culture
During about two centuries the bronze figure of the “Girl with a Pitcher”, from which a stream of crystal clear water flows, has been being a romantic symbol of the Catherine Park. A water source, located in a secluded corner on the hill slope and shaded with old trees crowns, was the beginning of the Vangazya Stream formerly. In 1810 it was transformed in a fountain by the famous engineer, mechanic and hydraulics master A.A. Betankur according to the order of Alexander I. In 1816-1817 the sculptor P.P. Sokolov created a miniature figure of a young girl, frozen in sadness over a broken pitcher, for the decoration of the fountain. The sculpture was moulded of bronze in the foundry of the Imperial Academy of Arts. La Fontaine's fable about the young milkmaid Peretta was used as a motif of creating sculpture. The sculptor realized a prosaic plot in the ideal art form of the Classicism style. The fountain invariably attracts attention of the park visitors, it is a source of inspiration for many poets, many poems are devoted to this fountain. Semenova Galina Victorovna
Alexander I, Emperor
Bethencourt Avgustin Avgustinovich
Sokolov Pavel Petrovich
Ekaterininsky Park/Pushkin, town
Academy of Arts