Wikipedia (visit link) tells us about the scultpure:
"Manneken Pis...(literally Little Man Pee in Marols, a Dutch dialect spoken in Brussels, also known in French as le Petit Julien), is a famous Brussels landmark. It is a small bronze fountain sculpture depicting a naked little boy urinating into the fountain's basin. It was designed by Jerome Duquesnoy and put in place in 1618 or 1619. It bears a similar cultural significance as Copenhagen's Little Mermaid...
The famous statue is located at the junction of Rue de l'Étuve/Stoofstraat and Rue du Chêne/Eikstraat. To find it, one takes the left lane next to the Brussels Town Hall from the famous Grand Place and walks a few hundred metres to arrive at the spot. The statue will be on the left corner...
The 61 cm tall bronze statue on the corner of Rue de l'Etuve and Rue des Grands Carmes was made in 1619 by Brussels sculptor Hieronimus Duquesnoy. The figure has been repeatedly stolen; the current statue is a copy from 1965. The original is kept at the Maison du Roi/Broodhuis on the Grand Place.
There are several legends behind this statue, but the most famous is the one about Duke Godfrey III of Leuven. In 1142, the troops of this two-year-old lord were battling against the troops of the Berthouts, the lords of Grimbergen, in Ransbeke (now Neder-over-Heembeek). The troops put the infant lord in a basket and hung the basket in a tree to encourage them. From there, the boy urinated on the troops of the Berthouts, who eventually lost the battle."
Note that the statue is periodically clothed in different costumes. The photo of the statue posted with this waymark was taken in October 2011 and shows the statue dressed as a janitor.
As for the book, Good Reads (
visit link) informs us:
"Regarding Manneken Pis: Culture, Celebration and Conflict in Brussels
by Catherine Emerson
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Manneken Pis, a fountain featuring a bronze child urinating, has stood on the same Brussels street corner since at least the mid-fifteenth century. Since there is no consensus on its meaning, it has been used to express many different readings of social relations in a complex city and nation state. It has formed part of the festival culture of the city from royal entries to gay pride but has also been exploited in conflicts arising out of war and occupation, and the tensions inherent in modern Belgium. Drawing on archives, histories, police reports, devotional literature, ephemera and a wealth of other sources, Catherine Emerson examines how one smaller-than-lifesized water source has come to embody a certain sort of Brussels identity." (less)
Hardcover
Published March 26th 2015 by Legenda (first published November 30th 2014)
ISBN 1909662305 (ISBN13: 9781909662308)
Other Editions
None found"