Showing the Italian Fountain at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915, this is a fine, green-toned bromoil print mounted onto a gray, deckle-edged mount along with imprint of the photographer’s own Fruitvale, CA atelier: HOUSEONHILL HANDCRAFT. The card may have been intended as a holiday greeting or promotional item.

The specific location for the fountain on the exposition grounds as well as a description citing who designed it appeared in the 1915 volume The City of Domes. (1.) A caption next to a halftone plate of the fountain in the volume gives the following description:

“Italian Fountain, Western Wall, in the Dome of Philosophy, Leading into the Palace of Education. It is the simplest and one of the most beautiful of all the fountains on the grounds, a type reproduced from fountains in Sienna and Ravenna, by Bliss and Faville.” 

These designers, the architectural firm Bliss & Faville, have some of their drawings housed at the University of California at Santa Barbara’s Architecture and Design Collection, Art, Design & Architecture Museum. The following is a supplied biography of the firm:

Biographical/Historical note

Walter Bliss (1872-1956) and William Faville (1866-1946) were partners in the architecture firm Bliss & Favillle from 1898 until 1925, working mainly in northern California and San Francisco in particular. Both Bliss and Faville were educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; after they graduated they worked for the New York based firm McKim, Mead & White. They moved to San Francisco in 1898 and formed their architecture firm. Bliss & Faville were known for residential work, but after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, they received many commercial and civic projects as well.

1. John D. Barry: The City of Domes: A Walk with an architect about the Courts and Palaces of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition with a discussion of its architecture- Its Sculpture- Its Mural Decoration-Its Coloring- and Its Lighting- Preceded by a History of Its Growth: San Francisco, 1915: John J. Newbegin, p.64.