Prohászka László: Equestrian Statues - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1997)

sake of compositional harmony, Mátyás raises an arm in greeting. Róna seized the opportunity of designing ornamentation for the Corvin cinema to commemorate the artist-friend János Fadrusz, who, in spite of his premature death, had created one of the most outstanding public monuments of the 1900s, the Mátyás statue, which had been unveiled in the main square of Kolozsvár in 1902.

The reliefs are pleasing to the eye and reflect decent craftsmanship, but their artistic standard falls short of the aesthetic quality characterising the zenith of József Róna’s career.

In 1924, a plaque was unveiled on the wall of a school building at Váci utca 43 in the inner city, in memory of the Swedish king Charles XII, who performed a remarkable feat of horsemanship when, in November of 1714, he covered the distance between the Turkish border and Stralsund in Pomerania. Commissioned by Dezső Bayer-Kru- csay, the chief Swedish consul, the Austrian sculptor Otto Jarl prepared a full-figure relief of the monarch renowned for his daring deeds, who in his legendary journey rode across Hungary calling at Zilah, Nagyvárad and Pest. Below the two-metre high bronze relief, which is set in a frame of grey Swedish granite, the following inscription can be seen:

King Charles XII of Sweden took a rest here on 17 November 1714. He took 14 days to cover the distance from Turkey to Stralsund on horseback.

Carl XII. rastade här pa Ridt fran Tilrkiet till Stralsund nov. 1714.

Gift of Swedish consul Dr. D. Bayer-Krucsay donated on 17 November 1914.

The monument was to have been erected on the second centenary of the event in 1914, but that was prevented by the outbreak of World War I. The unveiling ceremony was thus held ten years later, in 1924.

Hungary paid particular attention to commemorating the heroic dead of World War I. Financial restrictions of course could not be ignored, especially not with equestrian statues. That is why these public monuments were made, with a few exceptions, of less expensive materials, and only reliefs were cast of bronze.

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