The most personal work at Bory Castle is the sculptural group in the Chapel of Conjugal Love, which commemorates the love shared by Bory Jenő and his wife, Komócsin Ilona.
The small chapel at the far end of the courtyard of Bory Castle is one of the artist’s most moving creative declarations. At its centre stands the monumental sculpture Conjugal Love, depicting Bory Jenő’s wife, Komócsin Ilona. The work is not an altar sculpture in the traditional religious sense, but an allegory of married love and fidelity, articulated by the artist through the example of his own life.
One of the composition’s most distinctive details is the small angelic figure kneeling at the sculpture’s foot. The charmingly modelled putto kneels upon a slipper while kissing the woman’s foot. According to tradition, the figure represents Bory Jenő himself. With humour and self-irony, this playful self-portrait suggests that the artist “pays homage” to his wife not through compulsion or subordination, but of his own free will and from profound love: he is certainly no “henpecked husband”.
The chapel’s further decorations reinforce the same idea. Among the figures appearing on the walls and ceiling are celebrated muses and female figures from art history. Even Mona Lisa has been given a place among them, her yellowish radiance indicating her “jealousy”. The playful iconography suggests that the great muses of history and art would look with envy upon the exceptional love that bound Bory Jenő and Komócsin Ilona together.
The Sculpture of Conjugal Love is therefore not merely a depiction of a female figure, but an artistic expression of a lifelong relationship. Few works are known in Hungarian art that commemorate marital love in a form at once so personal and so monumental.
The restoration of the sculptural group and chapel was completed in 2022, and visitors to Bory Castle can now once again see it in its original beauty.
In the corner of the sculpture, moreover, may be read the declaration, the marriage vow:
My finger points to heaven; God, look down upon me.
I shall never leave my adored little Ila.
I shall always be with Her, whether fate blesses or hurts us;
I love Her in joy and in sorrow alike.
With Christian faith, I solemnly swear
that until death parts us, She shall be by my side.
God, look down upon me; so bless me
as I make my vow with such sacred faith.