Marian Column, Hradčanské Square

This epic compound sculptural and architectural work topped by a statue of the Virgin Immaculata and featuring nine figures of saints positioned on an attractively shaped pedestal, was created in two stages, between 1724 and 1736. Work on the column and its sculptural decoration was initiated by the noted Prague sculptor, Ferdinand Maximilian Brokoff (the Virgin Immaculata statue at the top, plus the statues of St Elizabeth of Thuringia, St Charles Borromeo, Sts Peter and Paul, and St Florian); the remaining statuary was completed, after Brokoff’s death in 1731, most likely by another prominent Prague sculptor, František Ignác Weiss (St John of Nepomuk, St Adalbert, St Wenceslas). In the course of reconstruction and restoration work, the statues were removed from the column, and some of them were eventually set apart for replacement by copies (St John of Nepomuk, St Florian, and Sts Vitus, Wenceslas and Adalbert). The column’s repair is now almost accomplished, the only remaining stage involving the setting of finished copies of statues in the positions previously occupied by originals. The original statues will be restored and thereafter relocated to the garden of the Archbishop’s Palace.