Statue of Queen Elisabeth and Her Muse (Statuia Reginei Elisabeta și a Muzei sale) is a bronze monument on the Casino Promenade in Constanța, created by sculptor Ion Jalea in 1937. The group depicts Queen Elisabeth of Romania, better known as a writer under the pen name Carmen Sylva, together with a seated female figure holding a harp.
Queen Elisabeth had a strong personal connection with Constanța and the Black Sea. She spent time in the city with King Carol I and often withdrew to the small royal pavilion known as the Queen’s Nest, built in the Constanța Port as a quieter place for writing, music and receiving guests. Her literary identity as Carmen Sylva is central to the monument, which presents her not only as queen but also as a poet and patron of the arts.
Ion Jalea designed the ensemble as two separate bronze figures, with the queen standing above and the so-called “Woman with Harp” placed below as her muse. The monument was inaugurated in 1937 in the presence of King Carol II and had been funded through public subscription.
After the communist takeover, the royal monument was removed from the seafront in 1948. The statue of Queen Elisabeth spent decades in storage, while the original “Woman with Harp” was moved to Medgidia in 1975. When the ensemble was restored to the Constanța waterfront in 2013-2014, sculptor Horia Farcașiu created a replica of the muse so that the original could remain in Medgidia.
The restored monument once again faces the Black Sea close to the Constanța Casino, recalling both Queen Elisabeth’s literary life and the close relationship between Romania’s first royal couple and the development of Constanța at the turn of the 20th century.
