The model for the monument was the equestrian sculpture of Marcus Aurelius in Rome. The author of the project is sculptor Franz Anton Sauner. He received an order in 1795 and in 1797 presented a project of the monument. The manufacturing and installation process took 10 years. Statues of the emperor (1800) and a horse (1803) were made separately at the foundry. This was the first such work in Austria, earlier such sculptures were cast in France. The emperor in Roman clothes and shoes sits on a horse without a saddle and stirrups.→