Whitney's caryatid figure dated back to 1913 when she won an award for it at the Paris Salon and from the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. It had been modeled for the Arlington Hotel in Washington, D.C.[4] The original hotel was demolished in 1912 to make room for a larger hotel, that was to include Whitney's caryatid, but its funding fell through and it was never built.[5] The figure was exhibited at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915, and a bronze version of it was erected in Lima, Peru in 1924. At the time of the fountain's unveiling, it was draped in a Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes, Whitney, in poor health and in mourning over the death of her husband Harry Payne Whitney, did not attend. She also missed the unveiling of her Titanic Memorial in Washington D.C. three days before.[6]
^ Proske, Beatrice Gilman, Brookgreen Gardens Sculpture, Printed by Order of the Trustees Brookgreen S.C., 1943, p.220
^Goode, James M., Capitol Losses: A Cultural History of Washington’s Destroyed Buildings, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington D.C. 1979 pp.176-178
^ Friedman, B.H., Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney: a biography by B.H. Friedman with the research collaboration of Flora Miller Irving, Doubleday & Company, New York, 1978, p. 548
