Johann Wolfgang Goethe Monument

J. W. Goethe Monument

Goethe´s monument was erected on the basis of a design by the Cheb sculptor Karel Wilfert Jr. The monument was unveiled on 9 September 1906. In the centre of the monument there is a bronze relief with a fourfold enlarged image of the poet and the inscription "GOETHE". Below it are two bronze targets from which water is gushing. The marble statues on the right and left symbolise Beauty (a woman looking at her reflection in the surface of the fountain) and Truth (a man drinking from the fountain of knowledge). On the side marble reliefs we can find two mythological allegories. On the left, Pegasus and his lovers as an allegory of lyrical poetry, on the right, the traditional iconographic theme of the duel between the Centaur and Lapith as an allegory of drama.