Vienna, Austria: Marriage Fountain

Hoher Markt is the setting for the so-called Marriage Fountain, a tribute to the marriage of Mary and Josef. It's a 18th-century Baroque piece. Emperor Leopold I was supposedly very happy when his son Josef came back to war and his subsequent marriage to Mary. In fact, he had pledged to build some sort of tribute when Josef took off to take part in the Siege of the Fortress of Landau.

The problem was, Josef came back, and Leopold did nothing. And then the Emperor died in 1705, leaving it to his two sons to mark the occasion. This started as a wood object, but fell apart rather quickly. So it was on to something more permanent by 1735.

For a fountain, there isn't a heck of a lot of water in it. But ... it still works as a statue, I guess. The credit for this goes to Johann Emanuel Fischer von Erlach.

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