Statue of Liberty of War; since 1933 it has been maintained by the National Park Service. Public access to the balcony around the torch has been barred for safety since 1916. According to the National Park Service, the idea for the Statue of Liberty was first proposed by Édouard René de Laboulaye, president of the French Anti-Slavery Society and a prominent and important political thinker of his time. The project is traced to a mid-1865 conversation between de Laboulaye, a staunch abolitionist, and Frédéric Bartholdi, a sculptor. In after-dinner conversation at his home near Versailles, Laboulaye, an ardent supporter of the Union in
Equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, Aldershot Matthew Cotes Wyatt. In the statue the Duke is shown on Copenhagen, the famous charger that he had ridden at Waterloo. Much of the bronze in the statue is derived from French cannon captured at Waterloo and remelted in Wyatt's foundry. Wellington himself sat for the sculptor. Copenhagen, however, had died and a substitute horse was used as a model, which offended many at the time who saw a poor likeness to Copenhagen in the statue. The position selected for the sculpture was on top of the triumphal arch at Hyde Park Corner, built in 1827–8 in conjunction with an