Prohászka László: Equestrian Statues - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1997)
The Eugene of Savoy monument erected in front of the Royal Palace overlooking the Danube is an outstanding achievement of Hungarian art history. The name of Prince Eugene of Savoy is inseparable from the history of Hungary’s liberation from Turkish domination. József Róna, the artist who sculpted the piece, was originally commissioned by the city of Zenta to prepare the monument. (It was by Zenta that, in 1697, Eugene of Savoy won one of his shining victories, in the wake of which the Ottoman Empire was obliged to give up huge territories of Hungary that it had occupied.) However, the municipal authorities were not able to scrape together the expenses, which is why the bronze equestrian statue had to wait for things to take a turn for the better, first in Róna’s studio and then outside the main entrance to the Műcsarnok (Palace of Exhibitions). Fortunately the emperor-king Franz Joseph I took his Prime Minister’s advice and purchased the piece, which was then erected, under his personal orders, by the main fagade of the Royal Palace. The statue presents the prince in period costume and arms, wearing a plumed hat, a breast-plated top, a sword at his side and riding boots reaching up to the middle of his thighs. The left hand restrains the steed firmly, while the outstretched right holds the chief commander’s baton. The self-confident male figure radiates with power at a moment it halts the horse which, obeying its master's orders, stretches its forelegs out to stop dead in its motion. The composition is full of dynamism. Each detail, the trunk of the rider as it leans back, the flying tresses of the wig, the movement of the horse’s mane and tail and the waving of the prince’s long silken sash, all contribute to the overall effect. The features of the statue evoke the style of late nineteenth-century Viennese neo-Baroque. This is no accident as Róna had spent six years as an arts student in the Austrian capital. In profile, the slanting line of the general’s straight-bladed sword continues the line of the commander’s baton - in the manner of the same feature on Donatello’s famous equestrian statue in Padua. (The fine steed was modelled on one of Tivadar Almássy’s Lipica thoroughbreds.) The richly decorated Baroque pedestal was designed by architect Rezső Nagy. The life-size figures of a young and an older Turkish prisoner carved of limestone on the sides 7
