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

closed to the public are not considered here. However, publicly displayed reliefs which feature equestrian motifs are discussed as they tend to be valuable pieces by significant artists. The titles of completed works erected in Budapest are given in bold type, while inscriptions copied from their pedestals are in italics.

From the age of reform to 1918

The then separate cities of Pest and Buda began their rapid economic progress in the early nineteenth century. The growth of Pest in particular took spectacular proportions. Beside the newly burgeoning blocks of flats, churches and palaces, the first industrial plants and factories also appeared. And the fine arts were also slowly awakening from their slumber.

In 1824, István Ferenczy, the founding father of Hungarian sculpture, returned from his six-year stay in Italy. Having completed a number of portraits, this disciple of Canova and Thorvaldsen decided to look for a greater challenge. His intention was to make an equestrian statue, cast in bronze, of Mátyás (Matthias) Hunyadi (1443-1490), one of the greatest kings of Hungary. The idea met with an enthusiastic reception at first and a national fund-raising campaign was mounted to finance the project. Even a site was assigned for the monument in today’s Erzsébet tér. This initial zeal, however, was short lived. Only one tenth of the one-hundred-thousand-forint sum required for the erection of the twelve-meter high monument was raised. The project stirred a violent storm. Many found the price exorbitant, with critics of the project including the famous reformer Count István Széchenyi. And the drafts made by Ferenczy were not the most fortunate either, which provided another argument against the whole idea.

True enough, there were also defenders of the project. “Even if the whole enterprise be mismanaged,” said the celebrated poet Mihály Vörösmarty, “it does not follow that erecting a statue of King Mátyás is an anachronism, or that erecting monuments is an idea to be abandoned altogether.”

A 1:3 scale model had been prepared to order by 1844. Ferenczy set up his own bronze foundry in Buda as he in4