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The Art Nouveau fountain was built in 1912 in memory of Vilmos Zsolnay, a ceramic entrepreneur. It was commissioned by his son Miklós and executed at the Zsolnay factory.
In 1851, the merchant Miklós Zsolnay the elder founded the ceramics factory in Pécs, southern Hungary, for his eldest son Ignác Zsolnay. Early wares comprised very simple, useful wares, including dishes, water pipes and terracotta garden ornaments, that satisfied local demands. In 1865 Vilmos Zsolnay (1828-1900) took over the concern from his brother and added a range of decorative vessels, including flower pots, wash-bowls and jugs. Zsolnay used a high-firing cream body decorated with a glaze mixed with metallic oxides, which was known as 'porcelain faience'. Production is characterized by various styles of decoration based on Bronze Age wares excavated in Transdanubia, called 'Pannonia' wares, and Renaissance, Japanese, Persian, Anatolian (Turkish) and Hungarian folk ceramics.
In 1878, the factory exhibited a variety of 'porcelain faience' at the Exposition Universelle in Paris and was awarded the Grand Prix. In 1883, after numerous experiments, an iridescent glaze was developed, which was known as 'Eosin'. Articles with the 'Eosin' glaze were often further embellished with marbling and etching or decorated with large Persian motifs or Hungarian flowers.
In the 1890s, the factory created a frost-proof material, called 'Pyrogranit', that could be covered in a salt or tin glaze and used on the exteriors of buildings. Vilmos Zsolnay produced ceramic work for the buildings of Ödön Lechner, where the decorative effect of coloured tiles was part of an attempt to create a Hungarian style. After Zsolnay's death, management of the factory passed to his son Miklós Zsolnay the younger (d 1922), who employed such artists as Henrik Darilek and József Rippl-Rónai.
Between 1896 and 1900, the factory was influenced by the Secession movements and produced wares decorated with flowers, leaves and butterflies. After 1920 the factory produced only household and industrial goods, and in 1948 was nationalized.
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