Frederic Auguste Bartholdi Works

(April 2, 1834 - October 4, 1094)

Frederic was a french sculpture of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. 

Bartholdi trained to be an architect in Alsace and Paris and then studied painting with Ary Scheffer and sculpture with Antoine Etex and Jean Francois Soitoux. He toured the Middle East in 1856 with several painteres, including Jean-Leon Gerome. In 1865 he and several others conceived an idea for a monument to the Franco-American alliance of 1778.

Beginning work in 1870, Bartholdi designed the huge statue on his own initiative and was able to see its construction in Paris through using funds he raised in both France and the United States. It was made from copper sheets, hammered into shape by hand and assembled over a framework of four gigantic steel supports that were designed by Eugene-Emmanuel Voillet-le-Duc and finished by Gustave Eiffel, who later became famous for a different national symbol. The female personification of liberty, the sculpture is dressed modestly in classically inspired drapery, with the rays of enlightenment on her head. She weilds the torch of progress while holding the tablets of law, which bear the adoption date of the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776), and taking a step forward, breaking the steps of tyranny.

Dedicated in 1886, the statue was titled, in full, "Liberty Enlightening the World."