Fontaine de Léda

The Fontaine de Léda was one of fifteen new Paris fountains commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte in his decree of Saint Cloud on May 2, 1806.

It was the project of the engineer responsible for the water supply of Paris, François-Jean Bralle, and the young sculptor Achille Valois (1785–1862).

The fountain was condemned by the critic Amaury Duval in 1812 because of the subject of the bas-relief, Jupiter transforming himself into a swan to seduce Leda.

[3] In the late 1850s, during Emperor Louis Napoleon's reconstruction of the center of Paris, the Rue de Rennes was extended, and the wall against which the fountain was placed needed to be demolished.

He searched in vain for a public park or building where he could put it, and finally settled upon the Luxembourg Garden, where the Medici Fountain was in the process of being moved and rebuilt.