Statue of Liberty 1889, there were 38 U.S. states), although this was not done. Above that, a balcony was placed on each side, framed by pillars. Bartholdi placed an observation platform near the top of the pedestal, above which the statue itself rises. According to author Louis Auchincloss, the pedestal "craggily evokes the power of an ancient Europe over which rises the dominating figure of the Statue of Liberty". The committee hired former army General Charles Pomeroy Stone to oversee the construction work. Construction on the foundation began in 1883, and the pedestal's cornerstone was laid in 1884. In Hunt's original conception, the
Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia 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 and Lessups declined the proposed statue from Bartholdi, citing the expensive cost. The Port Said Lighthouse was built instead, by François Coignet in 1869. In the 1880s