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
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