Paris - Statue of Liberty - 11e

 Plate LXXXVI – Statue of Liberty…

Give and it will be given to you.

I’m certain that almost everyone knows that the famous Statue of Liberty (officially titled Liberty Enlightening the World) in New York’s harbour was a gift to America from the people of France. As much a political statement as a massive work of art, this is the image of Libertas the mythological Roman goddess now firmly established as the one we all reference. The statue’s history is already shrouded in fact, fiction and conjecture, despite being only some one hundred and ten years old- a period you’d expect to have been accurately recorded. Dedicated in October 1886 the monument commemorates the centennial of the signing of the American Declaration of Independence.

I had heard that the appreciative Americans (of Paris) had in return given to the donor nation, a smaller (approx 11 metres) version of their famous landmark, and determined to see it during my visit found my Parisian work colleagues, strangely, almost unaware of its existence. It’s unfathomable how much we take for granted the things we have in our own backyards. I guess the thought that they will always be there leads to such complacency.

Found on the man made island in the Seine known as the Allée des Cygnes (although I never saw a swan), this smaller Parisian version of the statue is next to the Pont de Grenelle,  a walk of some one and a half kilometres from the Eiffel Tower. It in its turn commemorates the centennial of the French Revolution and was inaugurated in November 1889. Originally sited facing the (Eiffel) Tower, the creator of the original, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, successfully insisted it be turned to face its American counterpart. This makes it somewhat difficult for the on-foot visitor to the location to photograph from the front (especially with a camera as deficient as the one I used), but with an additional walk to next Seine bridge I managed to capture Libertas.

I’m glad I got there.

P.S. There is a smaller Statue of Liberty, said to be a cast of Bartholdi's design studies, in the Gardens of Luxembourg.