Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi

Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi in 1880

Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi (August 2, 1834 – October 4, 1904) was a French sculptor who is remembered mainly for designing the Statue of Liberty. He is also known as Amilcar Hasenfratz, a pseudonym used for his paintings of Egyptian subjects, apparently because of concern that his work in another medium would distract from his sculpture.^[1]

Biography

Born in Colmar, Alsace, Bartholdi went to Paris to further his studies in architecture as well as painting.

Auguste Bartholdi died of tuberculosis, in Paris, on 4 October 1904.

The Statue of Liberty

Statue of Liberty in New York City

The work for which Bartholdi is most famous is Liberty Enlightening the World, the Statue of Liberty, donated in 1886 by the Union Franco-Americaine (Franco-American Union), founded by Edouard de Laboulaye, to the United States. It was rumored all over France that the face of the Statue of Liberty was modeled after Bartholdi’s mother; and the body after his mistress.^[2] Before starting his commission, Bartholdi traveled to the United States to personally select New York Harbor as the site for the statue.

In 1879, Bartholdi was awarded design patent U.S. Patent D11,023 for the Statue of Liberty. This patent covered the sale of small copies of the statue. Proceeds from the sale of the statues helped raise money to build the full statue.

Works in Colmar

Bartholdi Museum in Colmar

Bartholdi's hometown Colmar prides itself with a number of statues and monuments by the sculptor, as well as with a museum in the house in which he was born.

• Monument du Général Rapp - 1856 (first shown 1855 in Paris. Bartholdi's earliest major work)
• Fontaine Schongauer - 1863 (in front of the Unterlinden Museum)
• Fontaine de l'Amiral Bruat - 1864
• Fontaine Roeselmann - 1888
• Monument Hirn - 1894
• Fontaine Schwendi - 1898
• Statue "Les grands soutiens du monde" − 1902 (in the courtyard of the museum)

Other major works

Bartholdi Fountain in Washington, D.C.

Bartholdi’s other major works includes a variety of statues at Clermont-Ferrand, in Paris, and in other places. Notable works include the following:

• 1876 (plaster version in 1874) : Frieze and four angelic trumpeters on the tower of Brattle Square Church, Boston, Massachusetts, United States;
• 1876 : The Marquis de Lafayette Statue, in Union Square, New York City, United States;
• 1878 : The Bartholdi Fountain in Bartholdi Park, the United States Botanic Garden, Washington, DC, United States;
• 1880 : The The Lion of Belfort, in Belfort, France, a massive sculpture of a lion carved into the side of a mountain, depicting the huge struggle of the French to hold off the Prussian assault at the end of the Franco-Prussian War. Bartholdi was an officer himself during this period, attached to Garibaldi.
• 1889 : Switzerland Succoring Strasbourg, at Basel, Switzerland, was a gift from the French city of Strasbourg, in appreciation of the help it received during the Franco-Prussian War.
• 1892 : Fontaine Bartholdi, on the Place des Terreaux, in Lyon, France.
• 1895 : the Lafayette and Washington Monument, in the Place des États-Unis, Paris, and an exact replica raised at Morningside Park, New York City, United States.
• 1903 : Equestrian statue of Vercingetorix at Clermont-Ferrand.

See also

• Place des États-Unis

Further reading

• Belot, Robert; Daniel Bermond (2004). Bartholdi. 

• Gschaedler, Andre (1966). True Light on the Statue of Liberty and Her Creator. 

• Moreno, Barry (2000). The Statue of Liberty Encyclopedia. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0684862271. 

• Durante, Dianne (2007). Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide. New York University Press. 

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi

• Biography
• The Bartholdi Fountain and Bartholdi Park - Washington, DC
• The Bartholdi museum (French language)