Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi

Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi; August 2, 1834, Colmar, Haut-Rhin - October 4, 1904) was a French sculptor known for designing the Statue of Liberty.

Life and career

Born in Colmar, in Alsace region French Jean Charles Bartholdi (1791-1836) and Augusta née Beysser Charlotte Bartholdi (1801-1891), Bartholdi was the youngest of four children, and one of the two babies to survive, along with older brother , Jean-Charles, who became a lawyer and editor. When my father died Bartholdi, her family moved to Paris, while maintaining ownership of their home in Colmar, which later became the Bartholdi Museum. He attended the Lycee Louis-le-Grand in Paris, and received his BA in 1852. He then went on to study architecture at the Ecole nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts and Ary Scheffer painting under his studio in the Rue Chaptal, now the Musée de la Vie Romantique. Then, Batholdi turned his attention to sculpture, which is then exclusively occupied him.


Bartholdi served in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 as a squadron leader of the National Guard, and as liaison to the General Giuseppe Garibaldi, who represented the French government and the Army of the Vosges. In 1875, he joined the Freemasons Lodge Alsace-Lorraine in Paris. In 1871, he made his first trip to the United States, to choose a site for the Statue of Liberty, the creation of which would occupy him after 1875.


On December 15, 1875, married Jeanne-Emilie Bartholdi Baheux Puysieux in Newport, Rhode Island. They had no children.
Bartholdi was a French commissioner in 1876 to the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. There he exhibited a bronze statue "The Young Vine-Grower", "Funèbre jin", "Peace" and "Genius in the Grasp of Misery", where he received a bronze medal.


Bartholdi, who received the rank of Commander of the Legion of Honor in 1886, died of tuberculosis, in Paris, on October 4, 1904.


Statue of Liberty


Work that Bartholdi's most famous is Liberty Enlightening the World, better known as the Statue of Liberty.
Soon after the establishment of the French Third Republic, a project to build a suitable memorial to show a sense of brotherhood that exists between the republics of the United States and France suggested, and in 1874 the Union Franco-Americaine (Franco-American) was founded by Edouard de Laboulaye. Among its members are Laboulaye, Paul de Rémusat, William Waddington, Henri Martin, Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps, Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, Lafayette Gilbert Oscar, and Bartholdi.


Bartholdi plan has been approved, more than 1,000,000 francs was raised by subscription throughout France to build the statue. In 1879, Bartholdi was awarded design patent U.S. Patent D11, 023 for the Statue of Liberty. This patent covers the sale of small copies of the statue. Proceeds from the sale of the statues helped raise money to build the full statue. On July 4, 1880, the statue was officially presented to the American minister in Paris, an event celebrated by a great feast.
Before starting work, Bartholdi had traveled to the United States and personally selected the New York Harbor as a place for the statue. Bedlow Island separates the United States as a site for the monument, and the funds collected throughout the United States to build the base, approximately $ 300,000 was raised. In October 1886, the structure has been presented to the nation as a joint gift from the French and Americans.


This statue is 151 feet and 1 inch high, and the top of the torch is at an elevation of 305 feet 1 inch from the average low water mark . This is the greatest work of its kind ever completed until that time. There is a rumor in France that faces the Statue of Liberty was modeled after Bartholdi's mother, and the bodies after his wife, Jean Emilie.


History of the Statue of Liberty

Liberty Enlightening the World, better known as the Statue of Liberty, is a giant statue of Liberty is located on the island, at the mouth of the Hudson River in New York Harbor, the United States. The statue was presented to France to the United States at the end of the 19th century and is a symbol of welcome to visitors, immigrants and returning Americans.



Bronze statue was unveiled on October 28, 1886 This is a gift one hundred years of independence the United States and is an expression of friendship between the two countries. Sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi statue is, and Gustave Eiffel (designer of the Eiffel Tower) designed the support structure inside. Statue of Liberty is one of the most famous symbol of the U.S. throughout the world, and symbolizes independence and freedom from oppression.
And on the 1984 Statue of Liberty on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Site