Queen Elizabeth was assassinated in Geneva in September 1898. To commemorated the wildly popular queen, that same year the Hungarian parliament decreed that a statue of her likeness should be erected in the capitol. There was a country-wide fundraising effort to fund the effort, and by the end of 1899 several times the necessary fund were collected for the memorial. Between 1900 and 1919 there were seven competitions announced to determine the sculptor of the statue. In the final closed tender, the plan of sculptor György Zala and architect Rezsõ Hikisch was accepted. The sculpture was finally unveiled on September 11, 1932 at Eskü (today Marc 15) Square. The memorial was fortunately unharmed during the siege of Budapest; however, it was taken down in 1953. The original sculpture remained in one piece and was rehabilitated in 1986 as the first of the previously removed sculptures. It was resurrected on the Buda side of Erzsébet (Elizabeth) Bridge, in the park at Döbrentei Square.