[1] Thus easy-rob'd, they to the fountain sped That in the middle of the court up-threw A stream, high spouting from its liquid bed, And falling back again in drizzly dew; There each deep draughts, as deep he thirsted drew; It was a fountain of nepenthe rare; Whence, as Dan Homer sings, huge pleasaunce grew, And sweet oblivion of vile earthly care; Fair gladsome waking thoughts, and joyous dreams more fair.

[2] It shows an imaginary landscape with Classical buildings and ruins centred on the fountain, around and within which human and winged Cupid-like figures are grouped.

The Foundation proposed to take back and sell The Fountain of Indolence, which Sotheby's had valued in 2002 at between $16.7 and $25 million in Canadian funds.

[8] Its Rainbow-dew diffused fell on each anxious lip, Working wild fantasy, imagining; First, Science in the immeasurable Abyss of thought, Measured her orbit slumbering.

No subsequent ownership history of The Fountain of Fallacy is known and the only recorded references to it after its first exhibition are two comments by John Ruskin.