Ivo Hlobil

Der spätgotische Turmwächter des Altstädter Turms der Karlsbrücke. Neue Fragen einer einzigartigen Statue 

The famous sculpture of the Tower Watchman stands at the top of the staircase in the Old Town Tower of Charles Bridge. A romantic interpretation of the sculpture comes from Albert Kutal, who found the Tower Watchman reminiscent of the hunchback in Victor Hugo’s novel, but the idea that the Watchman is a Prague version of the hideous Quasimodo must be ruled out. A hitherto overlooked fragment of a right hand, from its small size seemingly that of a child, sticks out of the hair on the Watchman’s forehead. In all likelihood it belonged to a now destroyed figure that used to be on the back of the sculpture. This raises the question of whether the Tower Watchman was not originally the figure of Saint Christopher, bowing beneath the enormous burden of carrying the Son of God. But other attributes of the saint are missing. Saint Christopher was always depicted as a barefoot giant, with a suggestion of the river he carried Jesus across at his feet, and wearing a shorter garment and resting against a tree torn from the ground. Medieval iconography offers perhaps just two other possibilities of what was crouching on the back of the Tower Watchman: either a demon or a monkey – which in early Christianity symbolised the devil, and later a sinner, folly, vanitas, or other possible meanings. In the choir of a building in Regensburg (from circa 1280) there is a gargoyle in the shape of a condemned man who has a large monkey sitting on his back. The presence of the monkey would explain why the Tower Watchman was depicted as a toothless and obscene old man comically dressed in a mantle that is too long and he is tripping over and that is in a style more typical of someone from a higher social class, with his shirt carelessly turned up, no trouser legs or undergarments, and in strange clodhoppers. However, regardless of whether it was a demon or a monkey, what is important is that the Prague statue of the Tower Watchman appears to be a unique work of its kind in Europe. Unfortunately, we do not know who commissioned it. Probably the Old Town Hall, or perhaps the ruler himself, George of Poděbrady.

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