Question: What if bronze figures could dance eternally? The Three Dancing Maidens at the Untermyer Fountain in Central Park offer just that vision. They stand frozen in a moment of gleeful movement.
This fountain features a bronze cast of Walter Schott’s Three Dancing Maidens. The sculpture was completed in Germany before 1910. American lawyer Samuel Untermyer inspired the fountain’s name. After his death in 1940, his children donated it to the park.
Originally, the sculpture graced Untermyer’s estate in Yonkers named Greystone. Part of this estate is now Untermyer Park. The city of Yonkers owns it. The fountain found its home in Central Park in 1947. You can easily reach it from the North Garden entrance at 106th Street and Fifth Avenue. The main entrance at 105th Street and Fifth Avenue also provides access.
The Three Dancing Maidens are young women holding hands in a circle. Their dresses cling to their wet bodies. It is as if they are perpetually in the fountain’s spray. Two jets sit on the oval pool’s sides. A larger jet is in the sculpture’s center. The sculpture rests on a limestone base.
Walter Schott began creating Three Dancing Maidens near the 19th century’s end. He used local Berlin girls as models. He made numerous sketches. Then he created a three-quarter-scale model followed by 36 more attempts.
Schott wasn’t happy until he met Rudolf Mosse. Mosse was a wealthy newspaper magnate in Berlin. He wanted a fountain for his residence on Leipziger Platz. Schott was inspired. He worked several more years on the design. The piece was installed in the early 1900s.
There are three full-size castings of the finished sculpture. Several three-quarter-scale castings have been found too. Two additional full-size copies were cast in 2003.
When Rudolf Mosse died in 1920, his estate passed to his daughter Felicia and her husband Hans Lachmann-Mosse. This included the newspaper Berliner Tageblatt. The Nazi Party’s rise meant a Jewish-run media empire was not favored. In 1933, a Nazi officer arrived at the Mosse Palais. He announced the imminent auction of all the artwork including the fountain. The family fled. The building became Hans Frank’s Academy for German Law. A 1940 photograph shows a stone lion replacing Schott’s sculpture in the courtyard.
Wally Mersereau, an investor from Northern California, researched the fountain. He visited New York City in the early 2010s. The Untermyer Fountain in Central Park caught his attention. With translated excerpts from Schott’s memoirs, Mersereau tracked down six versions of Three Dancing Maidens. These included the original, two full-size casts, and three three-quarters scale versions. He found two more recent full-size reproductions.
Untermyer’s children donated the Untermyer Fountain to Central Park in 1947. It originally stood at his Greystone estate in Yonkers. Mersereau made it his mission to find every copy of the sculpture. He traveled the globe to view each one. He found full-size versions in Antwerp and at the Burg Schlitz hotel in Germany. The one in Germany may be the original.
The Untermyer Fountain with its Three Dancing Maidens radiates delight. Every viewpoint reveals a new graceful aspect. The figures seem ready to twirl. They invite us to celebrate the beauty of art and history. As you leave, remember the story of these maidens. Their dance continues inspiring joy in Central Park.