Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi 1871, not finishing the massive sandstone statue until 1880. In 1871, he made his first trip to the United States, where he pitched the idea of a massive statue gifted from the French to the Americans in honor of the centennial of American independence. The idea, which had first been broached to him in 1865 by his friend Édouard René de Laboulaye, resulted in the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor. After years of work and fundraising, the statue was inaugurated in 1886. During this period, Bartholdi also sculpted a number of monuments for American cities, such as a
Charlotte Dubray of this period remained in the family and have been scattered and often forgotten. In the 1890s Charlotte began to experiment with ceramics with the help of partners such as (1857–1940) and (1848–1926). A high relief of "Cérès" was exhibited at the Objets d’Art section of the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1892. She made an imposing statue of Saint Francis that won a silver medal at the Exposition Universelle de 1900. An article on the Besnard couple by Frantz Jourdain appeared in "La Vie heureuse" in 1904, with photographs showing this statue. Charlotte Besnard designed an