Lady Liberty Orsay Paris
by Weston Westmoreland
Title
Lady Liberty Orsay Paris
Artist
Weston Westmoreland
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
The Lady Liberty at the Orsay Museum. Paris, France.
Vertical view of the Liberty Statue
As you enter the Orsay Museum and face the main aisle, you will find Lady Liberty greeting you. A small-scale model of the Statue of Liberty by the French sculptor Auguste Bartholdi (1834-1904) has been placed right at the start of the visitor itinerary.
In 1865, the idea was born of France giving a prestigious gift to the United States to celebrate the centenary of American independence and to seal the friendship of the two nations.
The project was entrusted to the young Auguste Bartholdi, and was entirely financed by private funding. He went to New York where he presented his idea of an enormous statue in the classical tradition of the Colossus of Rhodes. The first completed element of the work – the hand holding the torch – was unveiled at the 1876 Universal Exhibition in Philadelphia. The head of the statue was exhibited at the 1878 Universal Exhibition in Paris, where its appearance would be one of the main attractions.
Construction had started in 1875, Gustave Eiffel designed the metal "skeleton" that would support the many copper plates (preferred to bronze because of its lighter weight) that shaped the statue.
The first assembly took place in 1884 and, for a few weeks, this 46 metre colossus could be admired in the very heart of Paris. The elements were disassembled in early 1885 and packed into more than two hundred crates to cross the Atlantic to their final destination. The pedestal was finished in the spring of 1886 and the statue was inaugurated on 28 October of that year.
The Lady Liberty at the Orsay, a little under three metres high, was commissioned by Bartholdi himself in 1889, and subsequently exhibited in 1900 at the Universal Exhibition in Paris. Lady Liberty would remain in the Gardens outside the Luxembourg museum from 1906 to 2011, when it found its right place at the Musée d'Orsay, where many of her contemporary art masterpieces reside.
As for Paris... What can one say about the City of Light that has not already been said?
More views of Paris one copy-paste away in my Gallery at http://westonwestmoreland.com/collections/paris
More amazing statues, sculptures and carvings at https://weston-westmoreland.pixels.com/collections/statues+sculptures+carvings
Weston Westmoreland
Uploaded
March 2nd, 2021
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