Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi , SCULPTER
Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi (French: [fʁedeʁik oɡyst baʁtɔldi]; 2 August 1834 – 4 October 1904) was a French sculptor who is best known for designing Liberty Enlightening the World, commonly known as the Statue of Liberty.[1]
The Statue of Liberty
Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi (French: [fʁedeʁik oɡyst baʁtɔldi]; 2 August 1834 – 4 October 1904) was a French sculptor who is best known for designing Liberty Enlightening the World, commonly known as the Statue of Liberty.[1]
The Statue of Liberty[edit]
The work for which Bartholdi is most famous is Liberty Enlightening the World, better known as the Statue of Liberty. Soon after the establishment of the French Third Republic, the project of building some suitable memorial to show the fraternal feeling existing between the republics of the United States and France was suggested, and in 1874 the Union Franco-Americaine (Franco-American Union) was established by Edouard de Laboulaye.[1] Bartholdi's hometown in Alsace had just passed into German control in the Franco-Prussian War. These troubles in his ancestral home of Alsace are purported to have further influenced Bartholdi's own great interest in independence, liberty, and self-determination.[citation needed] Bartholdi subsequently joined this group, among whose members were Laboulaye, Paul de Rémusat, William Waddington, Henri Martin, Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps, Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, Oscar Gilbert Lafayette,[1]François Charles Lorraine, and Louis François Lorraine.[clarification needed]
Bartholdi broached the idea of a massive statue. Bartholdi's design approved on, the Union Franco-Americaine raised more than 1 million francs throughout France for the building of the statue.[1] In 1879, Bartholdi was awarded design patent U.S. Patent D11,023 for the Statue of Liberty.[clarification needed] On 4 July 1880, the statue was formally delivered to the American minister in Paris, the event being celebrated by a great banquet.[1] In October 1886, the structure was officially presented as the joint gift of the French and American people, and installed on Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor .[1] It was rumored in France that the face of the Statue of Liberty was modeled after Bartholdi's mother.[4] The statue is 151 feet and 1 inch high, and the top of the torch is at an elevation of 305 feet 1 inch from mean low-water mark.[5] It was the largest work of its kind that had ever been completed up to that time.[1]
Career[edit]
Early sculptures and work in Colmar[edit]
In 1853, Bartholdi submitted a Good Samaritan-themed sculptural group to the Paris Salon of 1853. The statue was later recreated in bronze. Within two years of his Salon debut, Bartholdi was commissioned by his hometown of Colmar to sculpt a bronze memorial of Jean Rapp, a Napoleonic General.[2] In 1855 and 1856 Bartholdi traveled in Yemen and Egypt with travel companions such as Jean-Léon Gérôme and other "orientalist" painters. The trip sparked Bartholdi's interest in colossal sculpture.[2] In 1869, Bartholdi returned to Egypt to propose a new lighthouse to be built at the entrance of the Suez Canal, which was newly completed. The lighthouse, which was to be shaped as a massive draped figured holding a torch, was not commissioned.[2]
The war and Statue of Liberty[edit]
Bartholdi served in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 as a squadron leader of the National Guard, and as a liaison officer to General Giuseppe Garibaldi, representing the French government and the Army of the Vosges.[citation needed] As an officer, he took part in the defense of Colmar from Germany. Distraught over his region's defeat, over the following years he constructed a number of monuments celebrating French heroism in the defense against Germany. Among these project was the Lion of Belfort, which he started working on in 1871, not finishing the massive sandstone statue until 1880.[2]
In 1871, he made his first trip to the United States, where he pitched the idea of a massive statue gifted from the French to the Americans in honor of the centennial of American independence. The idea, which had first been broached to him in 1865 by his friend Édouard René de Laboulaye, resulted in the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor.[2] After years of work and fundraising, the statue was inaugurated in 1876.[2]During this period, Bartholdi also sculpted a number of monuments for American cities, such as a cast-iron fountain in Washington, DCcompleted in 1878.[2]
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