Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia Bartholdi designed and built "Liberty Enlightening the World", which became known as the Statue of Liberty, and placed it in New York Harbor in the United States. Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia, also known as Progress Carrying the Light to Asia or pedestal committee; was a plan for a colossal neoclassical sculpture. Designed in the late 1860s by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, a French sculptor, the project was to be a statue of a robed female figure bearing a torch at the entryway of the Suez Canal in Port Said, Egypt. Both the khedive
Bartholdi Fountain Auguste Bartholdi, and it was cast by the Durenne foundry in France, which had won awards for its cast-iron fountains at earlier international expositions in 1862, 1867 and 1873. Bartholdi offered the fountain to the Exposition for free; he intended to sell it afterwards, and to sell others of the same design to other cities. The fountains stood at the center of the esplanade, near the main entrance to the exposition. When the exposition ended in 1877, Bartholdi did not find any buyers for his fountain. One year later it was purchased by the United States Congress, which offered him