Only in Paris by Duncan J.D. Smith

26 8 3 rd Arrondissement The Original Statue of Liberty 3 rd Arrondissement, the Statue of Liberty outside the Musée des Arts et Métiers at 60 Rue de Réaumur Métro 3, 11 Arts et Métiers The Statue of Liberty in New York expresses well the American no- tion of freedom. A gift from France to the United States to mark the centenary of the American Declaration of Independence, it depicts the Roman goddess Libertas bearing a torch and a tablet on which is inscribed the date 4 th July 1776. Visitors to Paris have the unique op- portunity of seeing four scale models of La Liberté in the city where she was constructed. First stop is the Musée des Arts et Métiers inside the former me- dieval abbey church of Saint-Martin-des-Champs at 60 Rue de Réau- mur (3 rd ). Here stands the original 1/16 plaster model used by the French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi (1834–1904) to create the statue in 1875–1884. Models depicting Bartholdi’s men working on the statue’s five metre-high head, which like the rest of the statue was first moulded in plaster on a wooden frame and then clad with sheets of beaten copper, are displayed in the museum’s Construction Gallery. The finished statue, which stands 46 metres high, was then shipped across the Atlantic in pieces, where it was reassembled over an iron frame designed by the engineer Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (1832–1923). The statue was dedicated in October 1886 by President Grover Cleve- land. By arrangement with the Musée des Arts et Métiers a handful of bronzes have recently been cast from the original plaster model, one of which now adorns the museum plaza. It bears witness to Bartholdi’s original vision, and acts as a reminder of the skill with which he made the finished statue appear solid by using invisible riveting. The seven rays of the statue’s diadem, incidentally, represent the seven conti- nents and oceans. A much older 1/16 th reproduction once stood in the Jardin du Luxembourg but has now been moved to the sculpture court of the Musée d’Orsay at 1 Rue de la Légion d’Honneur (7 th ). One of five it was cast for Bartholdi on 15 th November 1889 (which explains the date on the statue’s tablet), who then donated it to the City of Paris for display at the Exposition Universelle de Paris de 1900 . The fourth scale model is the largest and most dramatic. Placed