Construction During construction of the
Thomas Jefferson Building, the
French Renaissance main building of the
Library of Congress (LOC), plans were made to install an ornate fountain at street-level.
Roland Hinton Perry was chosen to design the fountain and its statues. Perry's other works include
Commonwealth in Pennsylvania, the
Thompson Elk Fountain in Oregon, and the Perry Lions on the
Taft Bridge in
Washington, D.C. Perry was commissioned in 1894 to create some of the Thomas Jefferson Building's interior
bas-reliefs. His work was well received and two years later, he was commissioned to design the fountain. By late 1896, most of the interior and exterior features of the building had been completed. Construction crews began preparing the area for the fountain. By this point, Perry had finished designing the Neptune sculpture. It was then cast by the Henry-Bonnard Bronze Co and shipped to the site piece-by-piece/in pieces. The foundry shipped each piece of the sculpture to the fountain site after its completion. in 1909 Artist
Albert Weinert designed some of the smaller sculptural pieces, such as the dolphins. Other architects who worked on the fountain include
Edward Pearce Casey,
John L. Smithmeyer, and the main architect of the Thomas Jefferson Building,
Paul J. Pelz. The fountain was completed on February 23, 1898, with the installation of the final piece, a
naiad. The Library of Congress Building, including the fountain, was added to the
District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites on November 8, 1964. On December 21 of the following year, the building was designated a
National Historic Landmark on December 21, 1965. The fountain and its sculptures have been cleaned and restored on numerous occasions. These repairs have included fixing broken concrete and water pipes. A major cleaning took place in 2017 when mineral buildup and stains were removed, masonry was repaired, and the fountain's basin was repainted. ==Location and design==