Fontaine des Tritons

Fontaine des Tritons stands in the Jardin Albert-Ier, a public garden in Nice surrounded by the city’s open urban spaces. Four white marble tritons support a basin, while water pours from their conch shells into a circular pool. Their muscular forms and flowing water bring mythological sculpture into an everyday garden setting.

The Lascaris family brought the figures from Greece, and Pierre Joseph Arson later gave them to Nice. They first appeared publicly on the Place Saint-Jean-Baptiste, where an ornamental fountain opened in 1825. Demolition in 1852 removed that fountain, but workers preserved the tritons before installing them at the Square des Phocéens in 1866. A Carrara marble basin followed in 1868, linking the sculptures to a more elaborate public setting.

Urban change later opened the surroundings, as the covered Paillon river allowed the garden to expand and the Avenue des Phocéens replaced many trees. During the Second World War, workers dismantled the fountain and protected it at Villa Paradisio. Afterward, they reassembled it here, and France classified it as a historical monument in 1920. The white figures still pour water from their shells above the round basin, carrying nearly two centuries of movement through Nice.