Fontanna Alegoria Walki i Zwycięstwa, Wrocław

Here on the Old Town Promenade beside the city moat, Fontanna Alegoria Walki i Zwycięstwa is a fountain framed by two monumental sculptures. At its centre, a broad dish-shaped basin carries a vase on a pedestal, sending water down through two further circular basins. One figure shows a young, powerfully built Samson grappling with a lion: the image of struggle.

Its companion shows him seated on the defeated animal: victory. Architect Bernard Sehring and sculptor Ernst Seger created this neo-Baroque ensemble, using the exuberant, theatrical language of the Baroque revived around the turn of the twentieth century. It was completed and unveiled in August nineteen oh five.

The money came from funds left over after the construction of Wrocław’s Bismarck monument, and the fountain originally continued that monument’s composition along the promenade; it was once known as the Bismarck Fountain. War damage left the Victory sculpture headless for several years. The ensemble was restored in nineteen fifty-five and moved a few metres south in nineteen seventy. It has been protected as a heritage monument since October the seventh, nineteen eighty, and illumination now gives the water and figures a new presence after dark.