On the fountain is the bearded patron saint of the city of Naumburg in armor with a lance and the shield with the city coat of arms consisting of a key and a sword as the symbols for St. Peter and Paul. The round fountain itself has a diameter of approximately 2-3 meters and a height of approximately 1.20 meters. The figure stands on a correspondingly high base with a Corinthian capital as the base of the statue.
The market fountain, which was identical to the Wenceslas Fountain, was first mentioned in 1459 as a “stone born” and, like all of Naumburg's fountains, was connected to the city's tube system. In 1579 the patron saint of Naumburg came to the fountain, which was newly built in 1498. He was created by the Naumburg sculptor Heinrich Hase, about whom hardly anything is known, apart from the fact that in 1584 he also created the wooden sermon chair in the Wenceslas Church, which was replaced by a baroque pulpit. In 1940 storms destroyed this figure, so that since 1949 a faithful replica has stood here.
Stylistically, the Wenceslas of the Wenceslas Fountain belongs to the 16th century, which also gave the shape of the market as a whole its present character. The shape of the statue is by no means belligerent in its characteristic features, as its attributes might suggest, but rather humorous. That was surely the intention. This Wenceslas is an identification figure for the Naumburg population par excellence. This is expressed not least in the fact that Wenceslas appears symbolically on the local page of the Naumburger Tageblatt as the writer of a daily comment.
Source and further information: Wikipedia