Frédéric Bartholdi

Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi (August 2, 1834 – October 4, 1904) was a French sculptor. 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.cite book | last = Grigsby | first = Darcy Grimaldo | chapter = Out of the Earth: Egypt's Statue of Liberty | editor = Hackforth-Jones, Jocelyn (ed.) and Roberts, Mary (ed.) | title = Edges of Empire: Orientalism And Visual Culture | year = 2005 | publisher = Blackwell Publishing Ltd | isbn = 1405116897 | doi = 10.1002/9780470773901.ch2 | pages = pp. 38-69 | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=TMd8gk2jWeQC&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&source=web&ots=Dv5BdqG1wR&sig=zXp36Xji16HKfop9N9w-a7UTNdo&hl=en ]

Biography

Born in Colmar, Alsace, Bartholdi went to Paris to further his studies in architecture as well as painting. Then he made a long trip to Egypt and Yemen, where he heard about the Suez project. He came back to his native city to become an architect. Bartholdi was a freemason, [ [http://www.supremecouncil.org/index.tpl?ng_view=21 Little Known Facts] ] he was initiated on October 14, 1875 in the lodge L’Alsace-Lorraine, Grand Orient of France. [ [http://www.freemasonrytoday.com/19/p05.php Liberty Amidst the Destruction] ]

Frédéric Bartholdi died of tuberculosis in Paris on October 4, 1904 and is buried in that city's Cimetière du Montparnasse.

The Statue of Liberty

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. [ [http://videoindex.pbs.org/program/all_chapters.asp?item_id=10941 PBS VIDEOindex® Online] ] Before starting his commission, Bartholdi traveled to the United States to personally select New York Harbor as the site for the statue.

While in a visit to Egypt that was to shift his artistic perspective from simply grand to colossal, Bartholdi was inspired by the project of Suez Canal which was being undertaken by Ferdinand, Vicomte de Lesseps who later became his life-long friend. He envisioned a giant lighthouse standing at the entrance to Suez Canal and drew plans for it. It would be patterned after the Roman goddess Libertas, modified to resemble a robed Egyptian peasant, a fallaha, with light beaming out from both a headband and a torch thrust dramatically upward into the skies. Bartholdi presented his plans to the Egyptian Khediev, Isma'il Pasha, in 1867 and, with revisions, again in 1869, but the project was never commissioned. [ [http://www.americanparknetwork.com/parkinfo/sl/history/liberty.html Statue of Liberty - History ] ] Accused of recycling the proposal for "Egypt Bringing Light to Asia" as the Statue of Liberty, Bartholdi publicly defended the artistic concept as wholly different from the Egyptian project, insisting that any similarities in form were limited to a figure holding a lamp aloft made necessary by the functional requirements of a lighthouse, but to the modern eye the visual resemblance is unmistakable. Nevertheless, Bartholdi replied to a journalist that the Statue of Liberty was "a pure work of love" while the Eyptian project "would have been purely a business transaction."

In 1879, Bartholdi was awarded design patent US 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.

Other major works

Bartholdi’s other major works includes a variety of statues at his hometown Colmar, at Clermont-Ferrand, in Paris and in other places. Some of these notable works are:

* 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.
* "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.
* The Bartholdi Fountain in "Bartholdi Park", the United States Botanic Garden, Washington, DC, United States;
* The Marquis de Lafayette Statue, in Union Square, New York City, United States;
* The four angelic trumpeters on the corners of the First Baptist Church tower, Boston, Massachusetts, United States;
* the Lafayette and Washington Monument, at Morningside Park, New York City, United States.
* Fontaine Bartholdi, on the Place des Terreaux, in Lyon, France.

Further reading

* cite book
last =Belot
first =Robert
coauthors =Daniel Bermond
title =Bartholdi
publisher =
date =2004
location =
id =

* cite book
last =Gschaedler
first =Andre
title =True Light on the Statue of Liberty and Her Creator
publisher =
date =1966
location =
id =

* cite book
last =Moreno
first =Barry
title =The Statue of Liberty Encyclopedia
publisher =Simon & Schuster
date =2000
location =New York
id =ISBN 0684862271

* cite book
last =Durante
first =Dianne
coauthors =
title =Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide
publisher =New York University Press
date =2007
location =
id =

References

= External links =
* [http://nga.gov/cgi-bin/pbio?245290 Biography]
* [http://www.usbg.gov/gardens/barthodli-park.cfm The Bartholdi Fountain and Bartholdi Park - Washington, DC]
* [http://www.bartholdi2004.com The Bartholdi museum] (French language)