[3] The sculpture of the Lion of Judah, in gilded bronze, is placed on a black granite pedestal decorated with relief portraits of emperors Menelik II and Haile Selassie, Empress Zewditu, and Ras Makonnen Wolde Mikael.

The work was made by the French sculptor Georges Gardet in 1930, on the occasion of the coronation of Emperor Haile Selassie on 2 November 1930.

Emperor Haile Selassie took part in the new inauguration ceremony in military uniform, also recalling the patriotic gesture of Zerai Derres.

On 15 June 1938, the young Eritrean Zerai Deres made a protest against the Italian occupation of Ethiopia in front of the monument.

[6][7] He was arrested by the fascist militia and imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital (however, contemporary Italian historians doubt the claim that he was mentally unstable) in Sicily, where he died in 1945.