The Polar Bear Fountain: Gift of Denmark On 28 September 1909 Arnold Krog, the artistic director of the Royal Danish Porcelain Factory, left his rooms in Hotel Des Indes for the Peace Palace carrying the design of a fountain. He informed the executive architect of the Peace Palace and the Carnegie Foundation that this would be the Danish gift to the Peace Palace. This design included porcelain statues of polar bears and sea lions designed by C.A. Ronessen and a border of red granite. In 1914 the fountain was completed in the Copenhagen factory and proudly displayed at a Baltic exhibition in Malmö, Sweden. However, as a result of the start of World War I the fountain could not be delivered to the Peace Palace. For economic and organisational reasons, it would take until 1920 before the fountain could be transported by ship to The Netherlands. The shipment consisted of 68 crates of porcelain elements and 37 crates of granite elements. The fountain was finally put together in 1923 and on 28 October the Danish envoy A. Nörgaard officially switched on the fountain.
