Buza Péter: Spring and Fountains - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1994)

observe the rules of idealized representation required of the academic sculptors of the period.

The fountain was returned to its original place in Ferenciek tere from Liget tér in 1977, after spending a century in exile. The figures, whose soft limestone material had been worn away beyond recognition, were re-carved by Dezső Győry. The Nereids’ Fountain, the first of its kind, is thus back where it first started to serve the city some one hundred and fifty years ago.

It seems that the nymphs of the sea can navigate more cleverly on the ocean of time than Rézi Fischer, the simple fisher maid of the Danube. She has not managed to find her way back to her original post of duty in the former Fish Market. After a long stint in Népliget she still stands “on foreign ground”, even if not very far away from her place of birth. The statue of the fish-seller girl-simply called Rézi Fischer by everybody-was originally erected near the Danube embankment on a base which housed a wheel pump. The filtered water of the river drawn by the pump spouted through the gaping mouths of some dolphins.

Here too, it is the urge to prettify which can be credited with the fact that a formerly ordinary public well was turned into one of the city’s decorative features. The first well was built before 1847, in the same place, here in the Fish Market, which was as much an integral part of the Pest-side bank as similar institutions are indispensable features of other riverside settlements. Even this original stone needle was well known and not only for its fine water. Its notoriety was partly due to its inscription which proclaimed the well’s name in German, which was, incidentally, the language used by the majority of Pest’s citizens. The inscription read: Brunnen. No less significant personage was angered by this sign than Mór Jókai. Here is how the famous writer gave vent to his indignation in a two-line satirical comment in the journal Életképek [Anecdotes]: “A well has been built in the Fish Market with its name written on it in German. Well done! Hungarians will recognize the structure for what it is-a well...”

On the initiative of the Fishermen’s Guild, the figure now known as Rézi and an ornamental plinth were carved. The idea materialized in 1862. (There were critical voices heard, which suggested that the idea might better have been expressed by the shape of a man. Such a masculine figure, with his shirtsleeves tucked up and his strong forearms bared, could have more aptly embodied the ideal fisherman than the shy and over-dressed fish-seller girl could ever be expected to do.)

The construction itself was undertaken by a Pest stone mason, a certain Mátyás Gottgeb, while the sculpture was carved by László, the son of the Lőrinc Dunaiszky who had not managed to win the commission for the Well of the Naiads.

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