The Geniuses of Dreath

THE GENIUSES OF DEATH Nicolae Seceleanu was a great merchant and landowner of Buzău, descendant of a family of shepherds of Săcele, Brașov. He was a pioneer in the introduction of new technologies in agriculture (irrigation systems, new breeds of animals and varieties of cereals). He was involved in the exploitation of oil and healing waters of Amara. In 1911 he commissioned the construction of a tomb in Dumbrava Cemetery. The funerary monument, named „The geniuses of death”, was made in 1911 by Frederic Stork, a great Romanian sculptor who left his artistic mark among many works of public interest, such as the Romanian Athenaeum and the Palace of Justice of Bucharest. It is made of black Carrara marble and it was inspired by the decorations of the Medici Palace of Florence, Italy. Nicolae Seceleanu lived in Buzău, 24 Dobrogei Str., now Alexandru Marghiloman Str., in the houses where Buzău County School Inspectorate currently operates. His daughter, Eliza, married the lawyer Petre Stănescu, but shortly after, in 1905, he died and he was buried in Dumbrava Cemetery of Buzău. Eliza Seceleanu tried to keep alive the memory of her ex-husband and erected, near her family tomb, one of the most valuable funerary monuments in the country, the work „Prayer” and the bust of lawyer Petre Stănescu, works of the great sculptor Constantin Brâncuși.