Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi (French: [fʁedeʁik oɡyst baʁtɔldi]; 2

August 1834 – 4 October 1904) was a French sculptor who is best Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi
known for designing Liberty Enlightening the World, commonly known
as the Statue of Liberty.[1]

Contents
1 Early life and education
2 Career
2.1 Early sculptures and work in Colmar
2.2 The war and Statue of Liberty
2.3 Later years
3 Personal life
4 Major projects
4.1 The Statue of Liberty Born 2 August 1834
4.2 Works in Colmar
Colmar, France
4.3 Other major works
5 See also Died 4 October 1904 (aged 70)
6 References
7 External links

Early life and education

Bartholdi was born in Colmar, France, on 2 August 1834.[1] He was born to a family of Italian[2] and German
Protestant heritage, with his family name Latinized from Barthold.[3] Jean Charles Bartholdi (1791–1836) and
Augusta Charlotte Bartholdi (née Beysser; 1801–1891), Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was the youngest of their
four children, and one of only two to survive infancy, along with the oldest brother, Jean-Charles, who became
a lawyer and editor. Bartholdi's father, a property owner and counselor to the prefecture, died when Bartholdi
was two years old.[3] Afterwards, Bartholdi moved with his mother and his older brother Jean-Charles to Paris,
where another branch of their family resided.[3] With the family often returning to spend long periods of time in
Colmar,[3] the family maintained ownership and visited their house in Alsace, which later became the Bartholdi
Museum.

While in Colmar, Bartholdi took drawing lessons from Martin Rossbach. In Paris, he studied sculpture with
Antoine Etex. He also studied architecture under Henri Labrouste and Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc.[3]

Bartholdi attended the Lycee Louis-le-Grand in Paris, and received a baccalaureat in 1852. He then went on to
study architecture at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts as well as painting under Ary Scheffer[1][3]
in his studio in the Rue Chaptal, now the Musée de la Vie Romantique. Later, Bartholdi turned his attention to
sculpture, which afterward exclusively occupied him.[1]

Career
Early sculptures and work in Co lmar
In 1853, Bartholdi submitted a Good Samaritan-themed sculptural group to
the Paris Salon of 1853. The statue was later recreated in bronze. Within two
years of his Salon debut, Bartholdi was commissioned by his hometown of
Colmar to sculpt a bronze memorial of Jean Rapp, a Napoleonic General.[3] In
1855 and 1856 Bartholdi traveled in Yemen and Egypt with travel
companions such as Jean-Léon Gérôme and other "orientalist" painters. The
trip sparked Bartholdi's interest in colossal sculpture.[3] In 1869, Bartholdi
returned to Egypt to propose a new lighthouse to be built at the entrance of the
Suez Canal, which was newly completed. The lighthouse, which was to be
shaped as a massive draped figured holding a torch, was not commissioned.[3]

The war and Statue of Liberty

Bartholdi served in the Franco-

Prussian War of 1870 as a squadron Bartholdi early in his career.
leader of the National Guard, and as a
liaison officer to General Giuseppe
Garibaldi, representing the French government and the Army of the
Vosges. As an officer, he took part in the defense of Colmar from
Germany. Distraught over his region's defeat, over the following years
he constructed a number of monuments celebrating French heroism in
the defense against Germany. Among these project was the Lion of
Belfort, which he started working on in 1871, not finishing the massive
Bartholdi sculpting. To the left is a
sandstone statue until 1880.[3]
miniature of Liberty Enlightening the
World.
In 1871, he made his first trip to the United States, where he pitched the
idea of a massive statue gifted from the French to the Americans in
honor of the centennial of American independence. The idea, which had
first been broached to him in 1865 by his friend Édouard René de Laboulaye, resulted in the Statue of Liberty
in New York harbor.[3] After years of work and fundraising, the statue was inaugurated in 1876.[3] During this
period, Bartholdi also sculpted a number of monuments for American cities, such as a cast-iron fountain in
Washington, DC completed in 1878.[3]

Later years

In 1875, he joined the Freemasons Lodge Alsace-Lorraine in Paris.[4] In 1876, Bartholdi was one of the French
commissioners in 1876 to the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. There he exhibited bronze statues of The
Young Vine-Grower, Génie Funèbre, Peace and Genius in the Grasp of Misery, receiving a bronze medal for
the latter.[1] His 1878 statue Gribeauval became the property of the French nation.[1]

A prolific creator of statues, monuments, and portraits, Bartholdi exhibited at the Paris Salons until the year of
his death in 1904.[3] He also remained active with diverse mediums, including oil painting, watercolor,
photography, and drawing.[3] Bartholdi, who received the rank of Commander of the Legion of Honor in 1886,
died of tuberculosis in Paris on 4 October 1904, aged 70.

Personal life
In 1876, he married Jeanne-Emile Baheux in Providence, Rhode Island.[3] Throughout his life Bartholdi
maintained his childhood family home in Colmar, France, and after his death in 1904, in 1922 it was made into
the Bartholdi Museum.[3]

Major projects
The Statue of Liberty

The work for which Bartholdi is most famous is Liberty Enlightening the
World, better known as the Statue of Liberty. Soon after the establishment
of the French Third Republic, the project of building some suitable
memorial to show the fraternal feeling existing between the republics of
the United States and France was suggested, and in 1874 the Union
Franco-Americaine (Franco-American Union) was established by Edouard
de Laboulaye.[1] Bartholdi's hometown in Alsace had just passed into
German control in the Franco-Prussian War. These troubles in his ancestral
home of Alsace are purported to have further influenced Bartholdi's own
great interest in independence, liberty, and self-determination. Bartholdi
subsequently joined this group, among whose members were Laboulaye,
Paul de Rémusat, William Waddington, Henri Martin, Ferdinand Marie de
Lesseps, Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, Oscar
Gilbert Lafayette,[1] François Charles Lorraine, and Louis François
Lorraine.

Front page of Frank Leslie's

Illustrated Newspaper, week ending
June 13, 1885

Bartholdi broached the idea of a massive

statue. Bartholdi's design approved on, the
Union Franco-Americaine raised more than
1 million francs throughout France for the
building of the statue.[1] In 1879, Bartholdi
was awarded design patent U.S. Patent
D11,023 for the Statue of Liberty. On 4
July 1880, the statue was formally
delivered to the American minister in Paris,
the event being celebrated by a great
banquet.[1] In October 1886, the structure
was officially presented as the joint gift of
the French and American people, and Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi in 1880 The Statue of Liberty
installed on Bedloe's Island in New York
Harbor .[1] It was rumored in France that
the face of the Statue of Liberty was modeled after Bartholdi's mother.[5] The statue is 151 feet and 1 inch high,
and the top of the torch is at an elevation of 305 feet 1 inch from mean low-water mark.[6] It was the largest
work of its kind that had ever been completed up to that time.[1]

Works in Colmar

Bartholdi's hometown Colmar (modern political administrative region of Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-

Lorraine) has a number of statues and monuments by the sculptor, as well as a museum founded in 1922 in the
house in which he was born, at 30 Rue des Marchands.

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", depicting Lazarus von Schwendi – 1898
Les grands soutiens du monde − 1902 (statue in the courtyard of the museum)
Other major works

Bartholdi's other major works include a variety of statues at

Clermont-Ferrand, in Paris, and in other places. Notable works
include:

1852: Francesca da Rimini[1]

1870: LeVigneron[1]
1876 (plaster version in 1874) : Frieze and four angelic
trumpeters on the tower of Brattle Square Church, Boston,
Massachusetts, United States Bartholdi Museum in Colmar
1876: Lafayette Arriving in America[1] (executed 1872, cast
1873)[7] in Union Square, New York City, United States
1878: The Bartholdi Fountain in Bartholdi Park, the United
States Botanic Garden, Washington, D.C., United States
1880: The Lion of Belfort, in Belfort, France, a massive
sculpture of a lion depicting the huge struggle of the French to
hold off the Prussian assault at the end of the Franco-Prussian
War.[1] A plaster was exhibited in 1878.[1] Bartholdi was an
officer himself during this period, attached to Garibaldi.
1889: Switzerland Succoring Strasbourg at Basel, Switzerland,
which was a gift from the French city of Strasbourg, in
appreciation of the humanitarian help it had received during
the Franco-Prussian War.
1890: Statue of Liberty in Potosí, Bolivia.
1892: Fontaine Bartholdi, on the Place des Terreaux, in Lyon,
France.
1895: Lafayette and Washington Monument," in the Place des
États-Unis, Paris, and an exact replica at Morningside Park,
New York City, United States.
1903: Vercingetorix,[1] equestrian statue of in Place de Jaude,
Clermont-Ferrand.
Bartholdi Fountain in Washington, D.C.

Statue of the Marquis Bartholdi's Lion of

de Lafayette in Union Belfort
Square, Manhattan,
New York City

See also
List of architects
List of sculptors
List of French people
List of Alsatians and Lotharingians
List of tuberculosis cases
 List of people on the postage stamps of Saint Kitts
List of people on the postage stamps of the United States
List of Freemasons (A–D)

References
Notes

1. Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John, eds. (1900). "Bartholdi, Frederic Auguste". Appletons' Cyclopædia
of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
2. Smith, William Rawson (2006). Villa Clare: The Purposeful Life And Timeless Art Collection of J. J.
Haverty (https://books.google.com/books/about/Villa_Clare.html?id=Lz7gM7MtezwC) (Google Books).
Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. ISBN 0865549923. Retrieved 07-08-13. Check date values in:
|access-date= (help)
3. "Bartholdi, Frédéric-Auguste" (http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/artist-info.6761.html).
www.nga.gov. National Gallery of Art. Retrieved August 5, 2016.
4. Moreno, Barry (2004-11-10). The Statue of Liberty (https://books.google.com/books?id=LhHW_eX9KV
kC&pg=PT23&dq=bartholdi+freemason&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjwyqPwouDRAhVJlVQKHUb6
BdUQ6AEIRTAH#v=onepage&q=bartholdi%20freemason&f=false). Arcadia Publishing.
ISBN 9781439632208.
5. "Frequently Asked Questions About the Statue of Liberty" (http://www.nps.gov/stli/planyourvisit/get-the
-facts.htm) on the United States National Park Service's Statue of Liberty website
6. "Statue of Liberty: Frequently Asked Questions" (http://www.nps.gov/stli/faqs.htm), National Park
Service website
7. "Union Square Highlights" (http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/unionsquarepark/highlights/13320) on the
New York City Parks Department website

Sources

Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John, eds. (1900). "Bartholdi, Frederic Auguste". Appletons' Cyclopædia
of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.

Further reading

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

Durante, Dianne (2007). Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide. New York University
Press.
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 0-684-
86227-1.

External links
Biography by the National Gallery of Art
The Bartholdi Fountain and Bartholdi Park – Washington, DC
The Bartholdi museum (in French)
The Statue of Liberty Enlightning the World, described by the sculptor Frédéric Bartholdy
Works by or about Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi at Internet Archive
Works by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi in American public collections, on the French Sculpture Census website

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Frédéric_Auguste_Bartholdi&oldid=800230531"

This page was last edited on 12 September 2017, at 06:30.

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may
apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered
trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.