Buza Péter: Spring and Fountains - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1994)
Október 6 utca has its own legend. The features of Flora offering water here were modelled on one of the celebrated beauties of the age by the above-mentioned Lőrinc Dunaiszky. We do not know who this charming woman was, nor do we know who the man was... because there was also an ill-fated man in the story, the real hero of the “suicide fountain”. Rumours, which do not reveal his name, have it that he was a well-known personality. It is suggested, however, that it was right here in 1848 that he shot himself in the head in despair over his unrequited love for the lady. Another work by Lőrinc Dunaiszky was also the subject of rumour among well-informed circles at the turn of the century. However, not even information about the former location of this has come down to us. Dunaiszky was commissioned by the treasury to make an imitation Greek fountain sculpture in the likeness of Maria Theresa. However, the sculptor chose for his model Fanny Elsser, the famous dancer on tour in Budapest at the time and the object of every man’s admiration. For this the artist was to pay a stiff fine... The story is very charming, but there is something rather amiss about it. When the artiste, who was indeed given a very warm welcome by the male part of the audience here, appeared on the stage in Budapest, the calendar read 1846, which meant that the good artist Lőrinc Dunaiszky had been dead for twelve years. What is easy to imagine, however, as implied by the legend of the “suicide fountain", is that the features of the sculptures can be regarded as compliments to flesh and blood models. They were compliments paid either by those who commissioned or by those who made these works, and it is by no means impossible that the ballerina, too, was the recipient of such homage. THE PUBLIC PREMIERE By the end of the last century, the two functions of fountains, that of providing water and that of pleasing the eye, had become separated. The role of decorating public spaces, which has by now become their sole purpose, appeared for the first time in Pest-Buda with the Danubius Fountain. The earliest document with references to the preliminaries of the case, bears the date 15 April 1869. The First Pest Domestic Savings Bank offered a substantial amount of money from its net profits for the purposes of erecting a fountain in Ferenciek tere. This respectable financial institute worked in the building designed by Miklós Ybl, which, towering at the corner of Károlyi utca and Reáltanoda utca, is still a splendid sight, even in its run-down condition. The gesture, one of the first initiatives taken by the Hun35
