The statue of
St. John the Baptist
A
St. John again... This time - after St. John's Church on Kálvári Hill and
the statue of St. John of Nepomuk not far from the fortress - St. John
the Baptist. What brought them together in Tata is unknown.
It was the 1942 Franz Joseph Prize, that drew Zoltán Magyary's attention
to the statue created by Mária Kovács. The great sociologist, filled with
local patriotism, proposed to place the sculpture in Tata, on the lake
shore opposite Miklós Mill. Just like its pair, the statue by Schweiger,
this sculpture also became a victim of a barbarous demolition. However,
Tata's renowned artist and teacher Lajos Dobroszláv managed to rescue it.
Later, the statue was kept at the parish-church in Tata during the years
when the presence of religious works of art in public places was disapproved.
Nevertheless, a small community - the Circle of Tata's Friends - considerd
the sculptor's and patron's original intentions more important.
