Jeanneke Pis

Jeanneke Pis is a modern fountain and statue in Brussels, which forms a counterpoint in gender terms to the city's trademark Manneken Pis, as it does aurally and geographically, being about the same distance away on the other side of the Grand Place / Grote Markt.

It was made by Denis-Adrien Debouvrie in 1985 and erected in 1987 and endowed with its own instant legend, the better to amuse strollers. This half-metre-high statue of blue-grey limestone depicts a little girl with her hair in short pigtails, squatting and urinating, apparently very contentedly. It is located on the east side of the "Impasse de la Fidélité" / "Getrouwheidsgang" (Faith Alley), a narrow dead-end street some 30 metres long leading northwards off the restaurant-packed "Rue des Bouchers" / "Beenhouwersstraat". It is unsurprisingly much less well known than its male counterpart, being a new addition instead of a centuries-old symbol of the city.