Year of construction:
1963
Design:
Albert Feist
Implementation:
Brückner Metal Foundry
Location:
Depiction:
The fountain is dedicated to medieval German minstrelsy.
A hexagonal water basin sits atop a hexagonal granite pedestal, surrounded on three sides by basin surrounds featuring Art Nouveau-style fish-headed gargoyles.
In the center, another round water bowl sits on a hexagonal pedestal, connected to the lower three borders by tongue-like support arches.
These supporting arches are topped with bronze figures of children with fish tails, each playing a different musical instrument: a fiddle, a hurdy-gurdy, and a shawm.
In the middle of the upper water basin stands a column topped with a bronze figure of a minstrel playing a lute in medieval garb. There are also six gargoyles on the column itself.
A love poem by Theodor Hampe from 1471 is engraved on the upper fountain bowl.
History:
Thanks to a donation from Babette Bach, the city of Nuremberg held a competition to beautify the Prater park with a fountain, which was won by Philipp Kittler's design.
In 1936, the fountain was removed by the National Socialists, presumably because of the Jewish origins of its founder, Babette Bach. The same fate had already befallen the Neptune Fountain on the main market square in 1934, which had also been erected through Jewish patronage and was later dismantled.
Both the Art Nouveau elements and the inscription commemorating the donor were removed. There are differing accounts of when the fountain was reinstalled in the adjacent Rosenaupark.
According to some sources, it was reinstalled as early as 1938, while others cite a date after the Second World War.
The name of the donor has since been restored on a bronze plaque.
Reference:
Wiltrud Fischer-Pache: Prateranlage. In: Michael Difenbacher, Rudolf Endres (Hrsg.): Stadtlexikon Nürnberg. 2., verbesserte Auflage. W. Tümmels Verlag, Nürnberg 2000, S. 838.
Ruth Bach-Damaskinos: Minnesängerbrunnen. In: Michael Difenbacher, Rudolf Endres (Hrsg.): Stadtlexikon Nürnberg. 2., verbesserte Auflage. W. Tümmels Verlag, Nürnberg 2000, S. 696.