Statue of Ion Luca Caragiale (Bucharest)

A statue of Ion Luca Caragiale, sculpted by Constantin Baraschi [ro], is located on Maria Rosetti Street in central Bucharest, Romania.

In 1957, Baraschi took part in the contest for the statue of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, which Communist authorities meant to place in front of the Casa Scînteii, a newly built Socialist Realist structure in northern Bucharest.

His bronze sculpture lost the contest to the one designed by Boris Caragea, so Baraschi decided to replace the head of Lenin's statue with that of Caragiale.

[2][3] In 1998, nine years after the 1989 Revolution, the Cartea Românească building was returned to its rightful owner; the Ministry of Culture had to take the statue into its patrimony, and subsequently moved it in front of a house where Caragiale lived once, on Maria Rosetti Street.

[4] The statue is featured in the foreground of the reverse of the 100 lei banknote, at its old location in front of the old building of the Bucharest National Theatre.