One-third scale model of the SS Cyril and Methodius statuary for the Charles Bridge in Prague

In 1928, the Ministry of Education and National Edification commissioned Karel Dvořák to design a statuary of SS Cyril and Methodius for a vacant spot on the Charles Bridge to replace the statuary of St Ignatius of Loyola by Ferdinand Maxmilian Brokoff, which had been destroyed by a flood in 1890. Dvořák worked on the commission in 1928-1938. His composition, which he adapted to the high Baroque statuaries on the Charles Bridge, is dominated by the figures of the Slavic saints placed in front: St Methodius with a blessing gesture, and, lower down, St Cyril offering a book and a model of a Romanesque rotunda symbolizing the dissemination of Christianity and learning. The allegoric figures below them represent the Czechs, Moravians and Slovaks.