The statue of Joseph II was originally placed in Cheb, where it was deposited in the courtyard of the Cheb Municipal Archive from the 1920s. It was not moved to Františkovy Lázně until 2003. The statue was created in the general wave of monuments made in honour of the emperor on occasion of the hundredth anniversary of his ascension to the Bohemian throne (1780) and the anniversary of the abolishment of serfdom by the Patent of Tolerance.
The sculptor from Cheb, Karel Wilfert, sr., depicted the sovereign in a representative, majestic stylisation with his right foot slightly put forward and with a scroll of the patent in his right hand. He gently rests his other hand on a column with decorative draperies. It is symbolic that the statue lost its right hand carrying the Patent of Tolerance in the events following World War I.
