Tracy, The name of another town, apart from MONTECATINI, would help. I live in ITALY and am interested in this item, but there are hundreds of fountains here and if you can't supply the names of more towns then please give us your grandfather's unit and I wll try again on that basis. BY the way, what was his name? Vitellino
Hi, I was intrigued by the photo, two things struck me about it; a) the lion seems of Romanesque or even Greek style (not that I'm an expert, just from what I've seen browsing stone lions over the last few days!), the face doesn't look 'classical', rather almost human! The positioning of the front paws makes me think it may have been originally a column support (see image). b) The fountain behind is also quite unusual, the stand seems to be carved to look like an olive tree, perhaps, not something I've seen many examples of. The only thing I found that faintly resembles it is the fountain in Piazza Santa Chiara in Assisi, not far from the Lion fountains mentioned in earlier posts, although in this case it's more fish than tree! The fact that googling statues/fountains/piazzas throughout Italy has come up with nothing makes me think that it must be in either a small town (although the buildings in the background suggest otherwise) or maybe a patio-garden in a hotel, for example. Not much help, I know, but maybe it'll give someone a new perspective.
I agree with all of this, Frank. I and my Italian husband both think it is in a small town and I am fairly sure that this is an allegory and not a true representation of a lion. Vitellino