
Explain that Liberty’s artisans had to use hammers, to push the sheets of copper into the nooks and crannies of the wooden repoussé molds, in much the same way your finger pushed the aluminum foil into your mold.) Lay the foil on top of the mold and push the foil, to create the design of the mold. (Display the picture Hammering the Copper Sheets-Repoussé as you demonstrate the idea of repoussé using a mold and a piece of aluminum foil. Liberty’s copper “skin” is very thin, less than the thickness of two pennies. After the sheets were removed from the wooden molds, the copper was hammered on the outer side, to develop the detail that hammering on the inner side could not achieve. In repoussé, hammering on the inside surface raises the outer surface of the metal. This hammering, called REPOUSSÉ (ree poo say), made Liberty strong, yet light in weight. Big, flat sheets of copper were laid inside the wooden forms and hammered into the smooth curves and lines of the colossal statue. These wooden forms were then used as molds to shape the details on the copper “skin”. Big wooden forms were next fitted to the exact shape of the plaster.

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Then, a large 36-foot model showed workers how big each section of the statue should be at full size.Ĭarpenters made a wooden skeleton and a plaster cast was formed over it.

A small, 9-foot, clay model was made first. Liberty rested on this frame, allowing her to stand even in high winds. Eiffel designed the inside of Liberty with four giant iron columns, linked by crossbars that fastened to her copper “skin”. Eiffel was well known in France as a designer of bridges and he was the same man who later designed the famous “Eiffel Tower” in Paris. He went to his friend, Gustave Eiffel, who designed a frame to support the huge Statue. For this, Bartholdi needed the help of an engineer.
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He knew how to make the huge statue but he did not know how to keep it from swaying and cracking in the strong winds of New York Harbor. (Bedloe Island was renamed Liberty Island on October 3, 1956)īartholdi was an expert sculptor. The star-shaped Fort was transformed into the base of Liberty’s Pedestal. The idea excited Frédéric-Aguste Bartholdi (bar tol DEE), a sculptor, known in France for his monumental (very large) sculptures and he began sketches for the statue in 1869, using his mother as the model for the face of Liberty.īartholdi chose Bedloe Island, at the entrance to New York Harbor, for Miss Liberty’s home. The two nations both cherished the same ideals-liberty and freedom. France had helped the struggling Americans win their independence from England. He wanted to honor the friendship between the United States and France since the days of the American Revolution. The idea that a monument be built in the United States “by united effort if it were a common work of both nations,” came up at a dinner party in Laboulaye’s home in 1865. The idea for Liberty came from Edouard de Laboulaye (La boo lay), a professor of law, in Paris, France. The poem, with vocabulary explanations, is included in the packet information and may enrich your classroom discussion about this famous American sculpture.īe sure ALL 11 pictures AND the video are returned to the Packet Carrier after your Presentation is finished EMMA LAZARUS, a young Jewish immigrant, created the poem, The New Colossus, which gave words to the various feelings that this sculpture came to represent for the many immigrants whose first vision of America was this giant lady, who still stands on New York City’s shore.

Liberty came to America in more than 300 pieces of hammered copper, which had to be pieced together and riveted in place. Liberty was a gift to America from France, celebrating the mutual freedom citizens from each of these countries mutually share. An iron frame originally supported Liberty but during her more recent renovation (1984-1986), for her 100th birthday, the iron frame was replaced with a stainless steel frame. She is as tall as a ten-story building-fifteen stories if you count her pedestal. The repoussé (reh pooh say) sculpting method of hammering the metal into wooden molds created the raised FORMS of her nose, eyes, lips, hair and the folds of her robe.

Her bronze (copper mixed with tin) “skin” is RELIEF SCULPTURE. First, she is a FULL ROUND sculpture-a freestanding statue, sculpted all the way around. The Statue of Liberty is a very unusual and unique sculpture. Hammering the Copper Sheets-Repoussé (ree poo say) Preliminary Terra Cotta Sculptural Design ModelsĦ.
