Spring comes to Central Park

This is a composite of four 85mm shots from Bethesda Terrace in Central Park NYC. Check it out in the Large view.

The Bethesda Fountain measures twenty-six feet high by ninety-six feet wide. It was commissioned as a part of Central Park's original design commemorating the 1842 opening of the Croton Aqueduct, which supplied New York City with fresh water.

The neoclassical sculpture, Angel of Waters, features an eight-foot bronze angel who stands above four small cherubim representing health, purity, temperance, and peace. The angel herself carries a lily in one hand while the other remains outstretched, poised in the action of delivering a blessing on the water pouring from around her feet into the basin.

Angel of Waters was designed by Emma Stebbins in 1868, the first woman to receive commission for a major work of art in the city of New York.