The Wiesbaden sculptor Karl Hoffmann (1816-1872), son of the master glazier and landlord of the "Europäischer Hof", Philipp Christian Hoffmann, created the marble group of the Greek goddess Hygieia with two children. The goddess offers the bowl of recovery to a sick child wrapped in cloths to her right, while on the left, a strong boy joyfully raises his hand in farewell after placing a wreath of flowers in the goddess's lap in thanks for her recovery.

Even before the middle of the 19th century, the spa owners in Wiesbaden had taken the initiative to depict the city's healing hot springs in the form of a work of art. This idea was to be embodied in a monument to Hygieia, the goddess of health and patron saint of pharmacists, who was also the daughter of Asclepius, the god of healing.

According to the contract, Hoffmann was to create the monument from Carrara marble within two years for a fee of 3,000 fl. He began his work during a stay in Rome in 1842-45 and later moved his studio to Cologne, where he wanted to complete the Hygieia. The revolutionary events of 1848/49 delayed the work. As the artistic idea of creating a single figure of Hygieia had become a group of figures, the costs rose to 6,600 fl.

The monument was to be placed in the immediate vicinity of the Kochbrunnen, but according to an expert opinion by chemist Carl Remigius Fresenius, this was not advisable due to the risk of the marble decomposing due to the carbonic acid vapors from the Kochbrunnen. The costs of erecting the monument - the planned date was 24.06.1850, the birthday of Duke Adolph of Nassau - were partly covered by the bathhouse owners, who were given permission to raise a "monument collection". The town council provided a further 100 fl. However, the Nassau government intervened and demanded the provision of at least 400 fl. to give the ceremony a worthy setting. As a result, the city fathers decided to unveil Wiesbaden's first monument on August 8, 1850 without the blessing of the court, which expressed its displeasure. Just three years later, the monument was moved to Kranzplatz on the grounds that it was an obstacle to traffic on Kochbrunnenplatz.

At the end of the 19th century, it also disappeared from there and remained in the Wiesbaden Museum for several decades. It was not until 1937, when the fountain colonnade was redesigned, that the Hygieia group was reinstalled in a niche, where it remains to this day.