Working on the Statue of Liberty Working on the Statue of Liberty Working on the Statue of Liberty, also known as Statue of Liberty, is a 1946 oil painting by American illustrator Norman Rockwell, showing workmen cleaning the torch held aloft by the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. The painting was created for the cover of an edition of "The Saturday Evening Post", published on 6 July 1946, from sketches that Rockwell made in March 1946. It depicts the cleaning of the amber-coloured glass of the torch, an operation undertaken annually each July. Rockwell focuses on just a small part of the Statue of
Statue of Liberty be fully dressed in flowing robes. Instead of the impression of violence in the Delacroix work, Bartholdi wished to give the statue a peaceful appearance and chose a torch, representing progress, for the figure to hold. Crawford's statue was designed in the early 1850s. It was originally to be crowned with a "pileus", the cap given to emancipated slaves in ancient Rome. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, a Southerner who would later serve as President of the Confederate States of America, was concerned that the "pileus" would be taken as an abolitionist symbol. He ordered that it be changed to