Robert P. Taylor's : Fountain: Reflections of 3 Dancing Maidens
The Three Dancing Maidens was created in Berlin in 1910 by sculptor, Walter Schott, and for this work he received a prize and recognition. The story of what happened to this piece between then and it's installation in Central Park in New York, however, is not well-documented. The installation site of the work, the north section of that Park's Conservatory Garden, offers no information beyond (a) the sculptor's name on the base of the casting and (b) a few facts about the donor (Untermeyer) on a plaque afixed to the stone rim surrounding the fountain. Various guides about statuary in and around Manhattan, provide varying accounts of the work's venue and history, agreeing only that it was created in 1910, by Schott, in Berlin. The most intriguing story was that it became the property of a German publisher named Mass shortly after its creation and that Mass then installed the work in a courtyard in Berlin, where it stood until the end of WWII. One story (which I could neither confirm or refute) suggests that this courtyard was to be demolished because it lay in the path of the to-be-constructed Berlin wall and Untermeyer at that point somehow got hold of the work and brought it to America. The stories vary about what happened to the sculpture next, some suggesting that Untermeyer installed it on the grounds of an estate north of New York City before donating it to Central Park, others, that he donated it directly to the Park in 1947. Either way, the work is worthy of an embellished history.
