The statue of Saint Margaret of the House of Árpád is one of Bory Jenő’s particularly lyrical and intimate works. This marble work was installed in 1938 in the building of today’s Teleki Blanka Grammar School, then known as the Blessed Margaret of the House of Árpád Girls’ Grammar School.
The statue paid tribute to the school’s namesake and was unveiled on 14 February 1938, during the jubilee Saint Stephen memorial year. The work was realised through public subscription, and Lajos Shvoy gave a speech at the ceremonial unveiling.
Bory Jenő did not portray Margaret in royal splendour, but as a humble, contemplative nun. The delicately formed face, serene gaze and softly falling folds of drapery convey purity, spiritual peace and self-sacrifice. The work’s simplicity is a deliberate artistic device: Bory sought not to stress outward ornament, but to make Margaret’s inner world visible. The statue’s quiet dignity is well suited to the historical figure whom Christian tradition venerates as an exemplar of self-discipline and love.
The work’s history is also distinctive. For forty years the statue stood as a subsidiary figure beside the altar of the seminary church in Székesfehérvár, before later returning to its original location in the grammar-school building. Today it can again be seen beside the main entrance, in a semicircular statue niche. A plaster version may also be viewed at Bory-vár, where another representation of Margaret stands in the arcade of the castle’s Hundred-Column Courtyard: there the princess appears in childhood with her sibling and her father, Béla IV.