The model was a fountain with a duck man in Nuremberg: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe visited the city four times and probably spent a long time at the fountain there. The reconstruction directly opposite Schiller's former home shows the Weimar goose man with his animal companions. He has two geese under his arm, and several swans crown the upper bowl of the fountain. The design by Goethe's chief building director Friedrich Streichhan was erected in 1863 on the basis of a citizens' initiative - more than 30 years after the poet's death.