Postcard of Semmelweis’ first statue in Budapest. 1908
One of the long-term plans of the Semmelweis Memorial Executive Committee, established in 1891, was to commemorate his figure with a public statue installed in the right place. Around 1901 there was already enough money in the international fund of donations for the preliminary work to be started. János Fadrusz (1858–1903) was commissioned with providing the plans, but the artist’s death interfered. In 1903 a new contract was signed with Alajos Stróbl (1856-1926), who moulded the first version of the statue by 1904. The Committee, however, did not like his plans and in their general assembly on 2 March they formulated some instructions for the artist. These requested that the figures of Semmelweis and the woman should not be in the same plane and Semmelweis should appear with a book in his hand, dressed in Hungarian clothes. The woman with her child – as an allegorical figure –should express through her gesture the gratitude of the world’s women. Her clothes should be poetic and definitely not Hungarian as not only Hungary’s women are grateful to Semmelweis. The requirements were accepted by Stróbl, and the final contract was signed in June 1904. Sróbl travelled to Carrara in July 1906 in order to carve there the final work that arrived in the capital by train in the last minute. The statue was unveiled on 30 September 1906 during a grand ceremony with significant international guests in Erzsébet Square, Budapest. After World War II, when the construction of a coach station started in the square, the statue was transferred to its present location, the square outside St Rochus Hospital (1948), which was in agreement with the original ideas of the Memorial Committee in 1893.
