Louise Cox
Fons Vitae (Fountain of Life), 1918
Titled top center, dated lower right
Oil on panel, decoration for a phonograph
Overall: 39 1/4 x 58 3/4 x 5 inches
In Fons Vitae, Louise Cox gives a modern invention the presence of an older, richly ornamented work of art. Designed as a decorative wall panel to conceal a phonograph, the...
In Fons Vitae, Louise Cox gives a modern invention the presence of an older, richly ornamented work of art. Designed as a decorative wall panel to conceal a phonograph, the composition places a fountain at its center and gathers children around it in a sequence of intimate scenes. Columns divide the figures into adjoining spaces, while carved borders frame the whole like an architectural furnishing. The Latin title, “Fountain of Life,” appears above the central image. Water suggests renewal; the children bring movement, play, and song to a machine whose workings remain out of sight.
The panel belongs to a moment when the phonograph was becoming a familiar part of the American home, but its appearance had yet to satisfy many advocates of refined interiors. In a 1918 article on the phonograph as furniture, William Laurel Harris presented Cox’s design as an imaginative answer to that problem. He explained that the sound horn was concealed behind the ornamental panel at the left of the composition, with storage for records at the right. Cox integrated the instrument’s practical parts into a larger pictorial design: the listener would encounter the children and landscape before hearing the music.¹
Cox was best known for portraits of children, although her practice also included stained glass. Fons Vitae carries her interest in childhood into decorative art. Its figures do more than soften the phonograph’s mechanical character. Their singing and gathering around the fountain give visible form to the pleasure of listening together, making the image part of the experience the instrument was built to provide.
The same 1918 article credited Cox with designing and executing two elaborately ornamented phonograph cabinets, describing a collaborative family process while identifying her as the originator of the designs and the maker of their principal features.¹ Fons Vitae shows the ambition behind that work. Cox treated the phonograph as an opportunity for painting, carving, and furniture design to meet. A device that might otherwise have been hidden became the occasion for an image of music entering domestic life.
¹ William Laurel Harris, “The Phonograph as a Piece of Furniture,” *Good Furniture*, July 1918, pp. 10, 12–14; illustrated as fig. 7, p. 13.
The panel belongs to a moment when the phonograph was becoming a familiar part of the American home, but its appearance had yet to satisfy many advocates of refined interiors. In a 1918 article on the phonograph as furniture, William Laurel Harris presented Cox’s design as an imaginative answer to that problem. He explained that the sound horn was concealed behind the ornamental panel at the left of the composition, with storage for records at the right. Cox integrated the instrument’s practical parts into a larger pictorial design: the listener would encounter the children and landscape before hearing the music.¹
Cox was best known for portraits of children, although her practice also included stained glass. Fons Vitae carries her interest in childhood into decorative art. Its figures do more than soften the phonograph’s mechanical character. Their singing and gathering around the fountain give visible form to the pleasure of listening together, making the image part of the experience the instrument was built to provide.
The same 1918 article credited Cox with designing and executing two elaborately ornamented phonograph cabinets, describing a collaborative family process while identifying her as the originator of the designs and the maker of their principal features.¹ Fons Vitae shows the ambition behind that work. Cox treated the phonograph as an opportunity for painting, carving, and furniture design to meet. A device that might otherwise have been hidden became the occasion for an image of music entering domestic life.
¹ William Laurel Harris, “The Phonograph as a Piece of Furniture,” *Good Furniture*, July 1918, pp. 10, 12–14; illustrated as fig. 7, p. 13.