The Three Dancing Maidens fountain in Central Park

Three Dancing Maidens is a nymph fountain sculpture by Walter Schott. Central Park is home to one of three full-size versions cast in bronze, with the other two located in Antwerp’s Den Brandt Park and the courtyard of the Burg Schlitz Hotel in the Mecklenburg region of northern Germany. Research into the identification of the original sculpture created for Rudolf Mosse in 1909, which was later looted by the Nazi Party, currently leads toward the version in the Burg Schlitz castle.

Smaller-scale castings of the sculpture can be found in Germany, Austria, and Northern California. The bronze sculpture depicts three life-sized young women dancing in a circle, their dresses wet and clinging to their bodies. The girls have their fingers intertwined and gleeful expressions on their faces. Author Dianne Durante wrote that it radiates delight, in a way few sculptures match, and there isn’t any point of view that doesn’t reveal some new, graceful aspect.

Wally Mersereau, a wealthy investor from Northern California, spent time as an amateur researcher. During his research, he was able to track down six versions of Three Dancing Maidens, including the original, two full-size casts, and three three-quarters scale versions. He traveled the globe to view each copy, including the versions in Antwerp and the Burg Schlitz.

Located in the Conservatory Garden of Central Park, the Untermyer Fountain is one of the full-size casts donated to the park in 1947. It originally stood at the Greystone estate in Yonkers, New York. The story of the three dancing ladies continues through this research, as investigators seek to confirm which of the surviving casts is the original to determine if it must be returned to the Mosse family estate.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons