In 1959 Bory Jenő created the sculpture Fairy of the Lake, which became the final completed work of his oeuvre. The artist was then in his eightieth year, yet his creative energy and desire to work remained undiminished.
While making the sculpture, however, he caught a severe cold in his unheated studio, developed pneumonia and died in the same year, on 19 December 1959. The work therefore occupies a special place in Bory’s oeuvre: it may be regarded as an artistic farewell and the culmination of his career.
The work was installed in Agárd in 1961, and has since become one of the settlement’s best-known public works. The aluminium sculpture, 180 cm high, was placed in the central park of Agárd. Its original plaster model may still be viewed in the Great Studio at Bory Castle, allowing visitors to encounter both the studio version and its realisation in public space.
The sculpture is also frequently referred to as “Female Beauty”, which aptly conveys its central idea. Bory Jenő was inspired by the distinctive natural world of Lake Velence, its waters, reed beds and the lyrical atmosphere of its shore. The slender female figure evokes both the lake’s mythical spirit and the ideal of eternal female beauty. The light, airy pose, elegant line and harmonious proportions display the finest qualities of Bory’s late style: rather than detail, the expressive power of movement and the purity of form come to the fore.
Fairy of the Lake is not merely a decorative public sculpture, but also one of the symbols of Lake Velence. Over the decades, it has become one of Agárd’s most photographed works, appearing on many postcards, in tourist publications and in presentations of local history. The sculpture remains an emblematic embodiment of the lakeside’s romantic atmosphere and of Bory Jenő’s artistic legacy, preserving both the artist’s final creative thought and his admiration for the beauty of the Velence landscape.