133 a year ago the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York: the story of the unofficial symbol of the USA

17 June 1885, the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor after a long journey across the Atlantic in the form of 350 individual parts.

Фото: Depositphotos

It was a gift to the United States from France as a sign of friendship between the two countries. Since then, this monument has won fame as one of the most recognizable symbols of the United States, although it does not officially have such status.

This masterpiece was created by sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi. In the French town of Colmar, where the master was born, his museum operates, which houses numerous models of the Statue, in various attires and headdresses, as well as photographs of all stages of its manufacture and installation.

When France decided to present this gift to America and chose Bertoldi as its performer, the sculptor was to some extent inspired by Eugene Delacroix's popular Liberty leading people people in Paris, which depicted a woman with a torch walking through barricades. He liked the idea of ​​dynamism, so he also wanted to make the Statue of Liberty for the USA forward. That is why the right foot of the sculpture is already in motion, and the left foot tramples the chains torn at its feet, as a symbol of liberation from oppression, tyranny and slavery. This topic was particularly close to American society at that time.

He placed a torch in the right hand stretched forward, illuminating the path, and in the left - original tablets with the date of signing of the Declaration of Independence of the United States - July 4, 1776, marked with Roman numerals "JULY IV MDCCLXXVI".

A crown was set on her head, framed (like diamonds) with 25 windows, with a halo of seven rays that personify the seven parts of the world. But the most important thing is the face. And Bartholdi portrays his mother Charlotte Beiser, in whose portrait he has only slightly toughened the features to give the sculpture a sense of determination.

France officially presented the Statue of Liberty to US Ambassador 4 July 1884. She was then fully assembled in Paris and put on display, then dismantled in 1885 and went to New York on the military frigate Iser, divided into 350 parts and packed in 214 boxes, where 17 arrived on June 1885. Assembling the statue on the pedestal took another four months. And finally, on October 28 of 1886, the grand opening of the Statue of Liberty took place, which later received the status of a national monument of the United States.

About why such a statue could appear in Egypt, and not in the United States; as a gift arrangement, it almost fell through and postponed the arrival of the Statue to America for as many 10 years; Read about Washington’s return gifts to Paris and all the details of this story in Leonid Rayevsky’s column for ForumDaily "Statue of Liberty: the history of the American symbol".

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