Statue of Liberty

  • The Statue of Liberty, whose official name is ‘Liberty Enlightening the World’, is a Monument built in the Neoclassical style symbolising Liberty.
  • It was raised in 1886 on Liberty Island near the entrance to New York Harbour in the USA, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Libertas

  • In her upheld right hand, Lady Liberty holds a torch and in her left hand she holds a tablet bearing the date, July IV MDCCLXXVI (4th July 1776), the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
  • The statue represents Libertas, the Roman Goddess of Liberty, wearing the Roman ladies robe, the stola, a crown and sandals. Libertas was known to the ancient Greeks as Eleutheria.

Description

  • The statue is one of the world’s most instantly recogniseable symbols.
  • It was a gift to the U.S. from the People of France. The sculpture was designed by the French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi (1834-1904).
  • The interior supporting structure consists of a steel framework built by Maurice Koechlin, the chief engineer of Gustav Eiffel’s engineering company.
  • The covering is made of pure copper plates that were hammered in to shape and have weathered to produce the distinctive blue-green colour.
  • The structure is supported on a pedestal constructed from stone.
  • The statue has a height of 151 feet (46m), which combined with the height of the pedestal 154 feet (47m), gives it an overall height of 305 feet (93m).

Replicas of the Statue of Liberty

  1. Statue of Liberty on the Isle au Cygnes, Paris
    • Three years later in 1889, the 1/4 scale Statue of Liberty used in the construction of the New York statue, was acquired by US citizens living in Paris and placed next to the Pont de Grenelle, on the Isle au Cygnes.
    • This statue holds a tablet bearing two dates, (4th July 1776) commemorating the US Declaration of Independence and (14th July 1789) commemorating the Storming of the Bastille which started the French Revolution.
  2. Statue of Liberty, Musee D’Orsay, Paris
    • A 1/16th scale model built in 1889 by Frederic Bartholdi, stands inside the entrance to the Musee D’Orsay.
    • A replica of the model stands in the Jardin du Luxembourg.
  3. Statues of Liberty in France
    • Smaller replicas exist in Barentin, Bordeaux, Colmar, Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer, Poitiers, Lunel and Lyon.
  4. Other replicas of the Statue of Liberty exist in various European cities.

 

Statue of Liberty, New York, USA (the photo above shows the quarter scale replica at the Pont de Grenelle in Paris, France)

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