Enceladus Fountain

About

The Encelade Basin is a fountain of the gardens of Versailles, France.

In the centre of the basin, is a statue of Gaspard Marsy in gold lead appearing Encelade, the leader of the revolt of the titants, crushed under the rocks and transformed into Etna. He comes out of his mouth, a 78 foot high jet.

Bosquet modified and simplified by Jules Hardouin-Mansart in the 1700s, the decoration of Le Nôtre turned out to be old-fashioned and expensive maintenance. In 1998, as part of the restoration of the gardens of Versailles requested by Jean-Pierre Babelon, director of the estate, following the storm of February 1990, the fountain of the Encelade was restored to its primitive state under the direction of Pierre-André Lablaude, chief architect of historical monuments. A spectacular but costly restoration of maintenance which engaged the plural state of the gardens of Versailles (states XVII, XVIII, XIX and XXI centuries) instead of the late eighteenth state, that of the replantation initiated by Louis XVI in 1774-1776.