Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi (; 2 August 1834 – 4 October 1904) was a French sculptor who is best known for designing "Liberty Enlightening the World", commonly known as the Statue of Liberty. Bartholdi was born in Colmar, France, 2 August 1834. He was born to a family of German Protestant (Alsatian) and Italian heritage, with his family name Romanticized from Barthold. Jean Charles Bartholdi (1791–1836) and Augusta Charlotte Bartholdi ( Beysser; 1801–1891), Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was the youngest of their four children, and one of only two to survive infancy, along with the oldest brother, Jean-Charles, who
Statue of Liberty carries a "tabula ansata" inscribed in Roman numerals with "JULY IV MDCCLXXVI" (July 4, 1776), the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. A broken chain lies at her feet as she walks forward. The statue became an icon of freedom and of the United States, a national park tourism destination, and is a welcoming sight to immigrants arriving from abroad. Bartholdi was inspired by a French law professor and politician, Édouard René de Laboulaye, who is said to have commented in 1865 that any monument raised to U.S. independence would properly be a joint project of the French and