Illustrated List of Fountains Manufactured by M. D. Jones & Co.

The middle decades of the nineteenth century were an age of iron. Large-scale foundries sprang up throughout Europe and the Americas, and from them poured forth a dizzying array of (often dizzyingly ornate) cast-iron designs for everything from coat-racks to radiators to building facades. Cast-iron fountains were particularly popular, and a number of firms made these relatively inexpensive markers of gentility. This broadside for a Boston foundry shows the full range of their wares, from a small ornament useful for a suburban garden to large and elaborate contraptions that could grace a public park or town square. The various fountains, all rendered carefully in wood engraving, are arrayed across the large sheet --- an eye-catching demonstration of the firm’s products and, when examined closely, a reminder of the immense amount of care, labor, and crafts that went into the production of nineteenth-century advertising at its highest level.