The fountain in the garden of the Observatory Marco Polo is often called the fountain of the four sides of the world or just Carpo - the name of the sculptor. Above the fountain we worked four authors, but it was Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux created figures of naked women, over the heads of the rotating globe and symbolizing Europe, Asia, Africa and America.

The fountain, located on a tree-lined axis between the Luxembourg Palace and the Paris Observatory, was conceived in 1866 as part of a Luxembourg Avenue (now - the prospect Observatory). This highway was one of the major projects for the reconstruction of Baron Haussmann in Paris. Davyu Gabriel led the project, responsible for the design of fountains, squares, lights, doors and other architectural details, he chose to translate the ideas of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux.

Karpo was already scandalously known - his sculpture of "Dance" on the facade of the Paris Opera to show the public, accustomed to the tranquility of neoclassicism, too jolly, almost unbridled. However, this is his idea - figures whirling around an axis - Karpo developed while working on the fountain of the Observatory. First, he fashioned fixed model, but realized that they do not have traffic. The next version of his arranged - four female figures whirl themselves and circling over the heads of the celestial sphere, enclosed by a ribbon with the signs of the zodiac. Signs of the Zodiac and the scope of a globe inside created student Karpo Eugene Legrain, magnificent sea horses, as if jumping out of the pool around the fountain, fish, and sea turtles - the sculptor Emmanuel Fremaux and garlands made of shells and aquatic plants that adorn the pool - Louis Willemin.

Work on the fountain was interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune uprising, resumed in 1872 and completed in 1874. Karpo was seriously ill and watched from a distance as the statues installed. He died the following year.

The first reaction of the fountain was sharply hostile. One critic wrote terrible sculptor line: "What an aberration of mind, eyes and hands must possess to create such a group of wild, vulgar and wrinkled dancers! "Well, if you look closely, the figures for women and the truth at least not too feminine, especially in America. Proportionate and even graceful came just Europe. But in general, the fountain looks impressive: fish and turtles released a jet of water, the horses rush out and on a hot day here is so pleasant that there is no strangeness in the female figures have no one notices.