The commission for the sculpture was given in 1863 to Emma Stebbins (1815-1882), an American-born sculptor working in Rome who happened to be the sister of a member of the Board of Commissioners of Central Park.

Stebbins’s eight-foot-tall fountain figure is an allegory for the life-saving, clean water of the Croton Aqueduct.

According to Scripture (John 5:2-4), at Bethesda, near Jerusalem, an angel occasionally came down to stir the waters of a certain pool. The first person to step into the pool afterwards was cured of anything that ailed him.

The main figure of Bethesda Fountain is the Angel of the Waters, about to stir. The four-foot-tall putti below her represent Purity, Health, Temperance, and Peace.

The day after the dedication, the New York Times published scathing comments on the Angel of the Waters. After describing a lovely spring day in the Park, with children frolicking and a band playing, the Times reported: "When the authorities, without any speech-making or declamation, withdrew the cloakings that shadowed the expected form of art, there was a positive thrill of disappointment. All had expected something great, something of angelic power and beauty, and when a feebly-pretty idealess thing of bronze was revealed, the revulsion of feeling was painful. --New York Times, 6/1/1873"

But familiarity often breeds fondness: it’s difficult to imagine anything else topping the fountain at Bethesda Terrace.