Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi

Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was born on August 2, 1834, in Colmar, Alsace, France, into an Alsatian Protestant family. His father, Jean-Charles Bartholdi, a counsellor of the prefecture, died early, in 1836; his mother, Augusta-Charlotte, was the daughter of a mayor of Ribeauvillé.⁠[1][2][3]

When Bartholdi was nine, his mother moved the family to Paris so that her sons could attend the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and study with accomplished artists. From 1843 to 1851 he attended the school and trained in the studio of the painter Ary Scheffer; during school holidays in Colmar he also took drawing lessons from Rossbach.⁠[4][1]

He first intended to become an architect, training in Alsace and Paris and studying architecture at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts; on Ary Scheffer’s advice he turned to sculpture, which he studied with Antoine Etex and Jean-François Soitoux.⁠[5][2][3]

Bartholdi’s first commission was a large bronze statue of the Napoleonic general Jean Rapp, completed when he was about twenty; it was exhibited at the 1855 Exposition Universelle in Paris and erected in Colmar in 1856.⁠[4][3]

At 21 Bartholdi traveled for eight months through the Middle East, Egypt and Yemen with several painters, including Jean-Léon Gérôme, photographing ancient works; the journey confirmed his commitment to sculpture.⁠[1][5][4]

Between 1863 and 1869 Bartholdi produced works in Colmar such as the Martin Schongauer monument and the Admiral Bruat fountain (1864). In 1865 Édouard de Laboulaye proposed that a statue representing liberty be built for the United States to mark the centennial of American independence and the friendship between the two nations.⁠[1][2][6]

In 1869 he traveled to Egypt again. He had presented a figurine for a colossal lighthouse, “Egypt (or Progress) Carrying the Light to Asia,” to Khedive Isma’il Pasha, who ruled Egypt and funded the French-built Suez Canal; the khedive rejected the design.⁠[2][4]

During the Franco-Prussian War Bartholdi served as an officer in the National Guard, leading a local regiment in the defense of Colmar, and later as aide-de-camp to General Giuseppe Garibaldi and as a government liaison agent. Colmar surrendered and was annexed by Germany. That year he made the first model of the Statue of Liberty and began designing the statue, called “Liberty Enlightening the World.”⁠[1][4][6]

On June 21, 1871, Bartholdi sailed into New York Bay to seek American support and a site. In a little under three months he chose Bedloe’s Island (now Liberty Island) in New York Harbor, which he called the “gateway to America,” secured a commission for a frieze on the Brattle Square Church in Boston and was offered the chance to show works at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.⁠[3][4][6]

In 1875, after the Franco-American Union committee was founded, construction of the statue began in France. Bartholdi oversaw the work at the Gaget, Gauthier & Co. workshop in Paris, where copper sheets were hammered into shape using the repoussé technique developed by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc; Viollet-le-Duc and Gustave EiffelGustave EiffelGustave Eiffel (1832–1923) was a French civil engineer and entrepreneur known for his metal bridges, the Eiffel Tower built for the 1889 Paris World’s Fair, and the internal framework of the Statue of Liberty; in later life he devoted himself to meteorology and aerodynamics.Open the full entry designed the four steel supports for the copper skin.⁠[1][7][4][6]

In 1876 the torch arm was displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and then at Madison Square in New York for five years; that year he also made a statue of La Fayette for New York. In 1878 the head and shoulders were completed and shown at the Paris Universal Exposition. France paid for the statue and Americans raised the money for the pedestal; Bartholdi sold miniatures and charged admission to see sections such as the torch and arm to raise funds, and Joseph PulitzerJoseph PulitzerJoseph Pulitzer (1847–1911) was a Hungarian-born American newspaper publisher and politician who founded the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, ran the New York World and served briefly in the U.S. House of Representatives. His will established the Pulitzer Prize, and his gift founded the journalism school at Columbia University.Open the full entry helped drive the American pedestal campaign.⁠[6][1][4]

The Lion of Belfort, carved from red sandstone, commemorates the siege of Belfort in 1870–71; BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopedia first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768; the name also refers to its publisher, Chicago-based Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (which presents itself as The Britannica Group). The print edition ended in 2012, and the company’s main businesses since then have been the online encyclopedia Britannica.com, digital education products for schools and libraries, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.Open the full entry dates its completion to 1880, while France’s Chemins de mémoire site places its making between 1879 and 1884. A bronze reduction was unveiled in Paris at the Place Denfert-Rochereau in 1880. Britannica’s article judges that many of his patriotic sculptures were inspired largely by France’s defeat in the Franco-German War.⁠[5][1][2][3]

In the same period he made the statue of Rouget de Lisle in Lons-le-Saunier (1879), the statue of Diderot in Langres (1884) and the Gribeauval monument in Paris.⁠[3][1]

The entire statue was completed and assembled in Paris between 1881 and 1884. On July 4, 1884, it was presented in Paris to Levi P. Morton, the U.S. minister to France, and then dismantled for shipping. The statue, 151 feet 1 inch (46 meters) tall and weighing 225 tons, arrived in New York Harbor aboard the French naval ship Isère on June 17, 1885.⁠[6][7]

In 1886 the pedestal was completed and the statue was reassembled on Bedloe’s Island, starting with Gustave Eiffel’s iron framework. Bartholdi returned to New York with a French delegation for the inauguration. The statue was officially unveiled on October 28, 1886, when President Grover ClevelandGrover ClevelandGrover Cleveland (1837–1908) was an American politician and Democrat who served as President of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897, as the 22nd and 24th president, the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms.Open the full entry dedicated it on its pedestal; with the pedestal it stands 305 feet (93 meters) high.⁠[6][4][7]

In his later years Bartholdi made the Roesselmann fountain (1888), the Hirn monument (1894) and the Schwendi fountain (1898) in Colmar; in Paris he completed the George WashingtonGeorge WashingtonGeorge Washington (1732–1799) was the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. Earlier he commanded the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War and presided over the Constitutional Convention of 1787.Open the full entry and La Fayette group (1892) and the “Aéronautes” monument on the Place des Ternes (1902), and he made a statue of Columbus shown in Chicago; his Vercingétorix monument in Clermont-Ferrand dates from 1903.⁠[2][3][1]

Bartholdi died of tuberculosis in Paris on October 4, 1904, aged 70; his funeral was held at the Montparnasse cemetery.⁠[2][5]

In 1907 Bartholdi’s widow, Jeanne Bartholdi, bequeathed his family house at 30 Rue des Marchands in Colmar and his models to the city, and that year a monument to his memory was erected in Colmar. The resulting Musée Bartholdi opened on November 18, 1922, and received the “Musée de France” designation on September 17, 2003. His Trois Sièges monument in Belfort was inaugurated posthumously in 1912.⁠[2][1][8]

Statue of Liberty National Monument: Official website: https://www.nps.gov/stli/ (opens in a new window).⁠[4]