River Horse (sculpture)
The River Horse is a bronze sculpture on the campus of George Washington University. It is located at Lisner Auditorium, at 21st Street and H Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C., in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood.[1]
In 1996, George Washington University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg presented this bronze statue of a hippopotamus as a gift to the University's Class of 2000. The hippo stands with its mouth wide. Its nose is slightly worn due to passerby rubbing it. A plaque is placed on the base:
- Legend has it that the Potomac was once home to these wondrous beasts.
- George & Martha Washington are even said to have watched them cavort in
- the river shallows from the porch of their beloved Mount Vernon on summer evenings.
- Credited with enhancing the fertility of the plantation, the Washingtons believed
- the hippopatamus brought them good luck & children on the estate often attempted
- to lure the creatures close enough to the shore to touch a nose for good luck.
- So, too, may generations of students of the George Washington University.
- Art for wisdom,
- Science for joy,
- Politics for beauty,
- And a Hippo for hope.
- The George Washington University Class of 2000
- August 28, 1996[2]
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