A le quartorze juillet

OK, yep, I know it was yesterday, but I'm catching up, ok!

There are some not so obvious links to France in Sydney, one of them being what is probably our most well-known fountain, The Archibald in Hyde Park.

It was built in 1932, a gift to the city of Sydney under the terms of the will of a Francophile J F Archibald (in whose name also an annual portrait prize is awarded). As a plaque says, Archibald's intention was to "commemorate the association between Australia and France in The Great War 1914-18" and is the work of French sculptor Francois Sicard.

It depicts a bronze Apollo surrounded by other mythical figures. Horses’ heads, dolphins and tortoises exuberantly spray jets of water.

In the 1880s AF Archibald founded the Bulletin newspaper, famous for encouraging an Australian idiom in Australian writing. But in his own life Archibald was fascinated by all things Parisian. He changed his name from John Feltham to Jules Francois and wore a little French style beard when no one else was wearing them. In donating the Archibald Fountain to the City he imagined its civic design and ornamentation developing to rival the city of his dreaming.

A postcard to the first person who can correctly name the three mythological characters from each of the sculptural groupings shown below!