DCist's Monuments series continues our recent swing through Judiciary Square today with the Joseph James Darling Fountain, one of the most hidden-in-plain-sight monuments around town.

For some time, the fountain has rated little more than a sentence or two every few years in the local press. Major newspapers from across the country get around to doing a piece on the District's statues once or twice a decade -- add another sentence. It doesn't add up to much. Even the most careful readers of all these publications would know about the Darlington Fountain is that: the statue comprises a nymph and fawn; the statue is naked!; the statue honors Joseph James Darlington; the statue is run-down; the statue looks better now! Indeed, why don't we let the finest newspaper writers of this country narrate its decline, fall, and redemption...

"The voluptuous nymph in Judiciary Square, honoring Joseph Darlington, one of Washington's most prominent 19th Century lawyers, could easily grace the centerfold of Playboy."
Chicago Tribune
July 3, 1988

With the statue's moral fiber under question, it wouldn't be long before she started to lose her looks:

"On the north side of the courthouse is a deteriorating statue of a fawn and a nymph. The nymph is naked -- a fact that caused a bit of public outrage when the statue was put on display in 1923 to honor local lawyer Joseph Darlington."
Philadelphia Inquirer
Nov. 30, 1997

And it got worse:

"The Joseph Darlington Fountain near Judiciary Square is corroded and missing gold, and its basin collects trash."
W. Post
Sept. 1, 1999

But then something happened. The D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities had the sculpture refurbished, and even won an award for the work. Yet the job was not complete:

"The Darlington Fountain in Judiciary Park at Fifth and D streets NW, a beautiful fountain with a golden Greek nymph, was erected in 1922 in honor of Joseph James Darlington, a prominent jurist. It was recently refurbished so that it practically dazzles in the sunlight of Judiciary Square, but it still does not function as a fountain."
W.Times,
June 22, 2000

And this is precisely how DCist found it:

We also learn from the W. Times that the statue was created by Carl Paul Jennewein, who "charged only for the supplies," and explained the nymph's nudity by asserting that she came "direct from the hands of God instead of from the hands of a dressmaker." It so happens that Jennewein also sculpted the nude "Spirit of Justice" statue at the Justice Deptartment, which in 2002 was made temporarily famous when then-Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft sought to have it beclothed.

Then, in a spot of luck for the perennially overlooked sculpture, a 31-year-old systems engineer/Jim Rome fan from Bloomington, Minn., decided to have some fun with Mr. Ashcroft's decoration plan. He posted a page to the Internet featuring the Darlington nymph, with blue cartoon curtains effecting her (ostensibly whimsical) return to modesty.

Thanks, Internet. DCist is just happy to do our part to spread gossip about this sculpture's tawdry condition and, contradictory though it may seem, pass on the news of Joseph James Darlington's good reputation.