Sculptor Frederic Bartholdi Signs an Image of Ongoing Work Building the Statue of Liberty, Freedom’s Icon

At dinner party in 1865, Edouard Laboulaye, chairman of the French anti-slavery society, proposed that France present the United States with a monument to liberty in the centennial year of American independence- 1876. Noted sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi was present and took to the idea. In 1870, he decided to move the idea forward and began sketching figures of “Liberty” for such a monument. The following year, encouraged by President Grant, he toured the U.S. promoting the idea of a Franco-American monument, to be placed on Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor. In 1875, although the project could not be ready for the centennial, France determined to proceed and the Franco-American Union was created there. That committee approved Bartholdi’s plaster model of “Liberty Enlightening the World,” began fundraising the 600,000 francs necessary to build it, and Bartholdi began constructing the statue. The plan called for the people of France to donate the statue and the people of the United States to build the pedestal on which it would rest.

Bartholdi understood the power of photography to help spread the message and raise funds. Pierre Petit was one photographer who was brought on to take pictures of the work in progress.

Signed card, approximately 3.5 x 5.5 inches, an engraving based on a photograph of Pierre Petit, showing the bust of Lady Liberty and ongoing work, with the words “Travaux de la Statue de la Liberte” (“Work on the Statue of Liberty”). We have never seen another.