Painting the Town -- Museum of the City of New York

The Statue of Liberty, one of the world's paramount landmarks, was presented to the people of the United States by the people of France at a gala unveiling ceremony in New York Harbor on October 28, 1886. Since the time of its official acceptance by President Grover Cleveland, "the Lady with the Lamp" has become the distinctive symbol of welcome to New York Harbor and the United States, as well as a beacon to oppressed émigrés to whom the figure personifies democracy, freedom, and opportunity.

The idea for this epic monument began in 1865, inspired jointly by the end of the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery in the United States, and intended to honor Franco-American friendship and express the admiration held by France's citizens for the constitutional democracy of the United States.¹ The sculptor of the statue, Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi (1834 -1904), worked tirelessly to develop the concept for this magnum opus (recruiting the technical advice of Gustave Eiffel, engineer of the Parisian iron tower that bears his name).² He also devoted enormous energy to raising money to enable the work's realization in New York Harbor. Bartholdi sold French businesses the rights to use his Liberty figure for use in their advertising, while in the United States publisher Joseph Pulitzer used his newspaper, the New York World, to print the names of those who donated funds to build the pedestal for the statue.³

For this romantic scene, marine painter Edward P. Moran chose the dramatic moment when a twenty-one-gun salute was fired to welcome President Grover Cleveland onto Bedloe's Island from the small launch transporting him from the Battery. This event (which, according to news accounts, took place in the rain, not the clearing skies of Moran's painting) and the ensuing ceremonies on the island followed in the wake of one of New York Harbor's more spectacular marine parades. The procession, as reported in the New York Times, featured "fore-running tugs, snorting and coughing," followed by three stately steamers and many smaller pleasure craft, including "scows plebeian and yachts aristocratic; dredges fresh from delving; nondescripts fished from some aboriginal canal; proud warriors of the sea; ferryboats; freighters, coasting steamers and river craft -everything that could float."⁴Also part of the day's program were reciprocal speeches in French and in English, uplifting contributions from military bands, and, at a wrongly timed but nonetheless memorable moment, the actual unveiling of the statue by the artist himself.⁵

The statue was erected on Bedloe's Island, named for its eighteenth-century owners from whom the State of New York purchased it in 1796. The state ceded the island to the federal government in 1800 for the construction of Fort Wood, part of the harbor defense system installed in anticipation of the War of 1812. The star-shaped fort that preceded Bartholdi's gargantuan figure is partially visible beneath the statue's base.

Notes:

1 "The Cover," Journal of the American Medical Association 256, no. 1 (July 4, 1986): 7.

2 Ibid.

3 The pedestal was designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt (1827 -1895).

4 Quoted in Brooks McNamara, Day of Jubilee: The Great Age of Public Celebrations in New York, 1788 -1909 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1997), p. 146.

5 According to the account of Anson Phelps Stokes, "the applause [for one of the speeches] was mistaken . . . as the signal . . . to pull the rope which unveiled the statue, upon which all the steamers and steam-tugs which were in attendance upon the island started their steam-whistles." Quoted in Ann Bernhard, "Trip to the Statue of Liberty," Museum of the City of New York Junior Bulletin 2, no. 1 (October 1941): 7.


Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World (also exhibited as The Unveiling of the Statue of Liberty), 1886 Edward P. Moran (1829 -1901) Oil on canvas, 49 1/2 X 39 1/2 Signed lower left: Edward Moran 1886 The J. Clarence Davies Collection, 34.100.260
The Statue of Liberty, one of the world's paramount landmarks, was presented to the people of the United States by the people of France at a gala unveiling ceremony in New York Harbor on October 28, 1886. Since the time of its official acceptance by President Grover Cleveland, "the Lady with the Lamp" has become the distinctive symbol of welcome to New York Harbor and the United States, as well as a beacon to oppressed émigrés to whom the figure personifies democracy, freedom, and opportunity. The idea for this epic monument began in 1865, inspired jointly by the end of the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery in the United States, and intended to honor Franco-American friendship and express the admiration held by France's citizens for the constitutional democracy of the United States.¹ The sculptor of the statue, Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi (1834 -1904), worked tirelessly to develop the concept for this magnum opus (recruiting the technical advice of Gustave Eiffel, engineer of the Parisian iron tower that bears his name).² He also devoted enormous energy to raising money to enable the work's realization in New York Harbor. Bartholdi sold French businesses the rights to use his Liberty figure for use in their advertising, while in the United States publisher Joseph Pulitzer used his newspaper, the New York World, to print the names of those who donated funds to build the pedestal for the statue.³ For this romantic scene, marine painter Edward P. Moran chose the dramatic moment when a twenty-one-gun salute was fired to welcome President Grover Cleveland onto Bedloe's Island from the small launch transporting him from the Battery. This event (which, according to news accounts, took place in the rain, not the clearing skies of Moran's painting) and the ensuing ceremonies on the island followed in the wake of one of New York Harbor's more spectacular marine parades. The procession, as reported in the New York Times, featured "fore-running tugs, snorting and coughing," followed by three stately steamers and many smaller pleasure craft, including "scows plebeian and yachts aristocratic; dredges fresh from delving; nondescripts fished from some aboriginal canal; proud warriors of the sea; ferryboats; freighters, coasting steamers and river craft -everything that could float."⁴Also part of the day's program were reciprocal speeches in French and in English, uplifting contributions from military bands, and, at a wrongly timed but nonetheless memorable moment, the actual unveiling of the statue by the artist himself.⁵ The statue was erected on Bedloe's Island, named for its eighteenth-century owners from whom the State of New York purchased it in 1796. The state ceded the island to the federal government in 1800 for the construction of Fort Wood, part of the harbor defense system installed in anticipation of the War of 1812. The star-shaped fort that preceded Bartholdi's gargantuan figure is partially visible beneath the statue's base. Notes: 1 "The Cover," Journal of the American Medical Association 256, no. 1 (July 4, 1986): 7. 2 Ibid. 3 The pedestal was designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt (1827 -1895). 4 Quoted in Brooks McNamara, Day of Jubilee: The Great Age of Public Celebrations in New York, 1788 -1909 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1997), p. 146. 5 According to the account of Anson Phelps Stokes, "the applause [for one of the speeches] was mistaken . . . as the signal . . . to pull the rope which unveiled the statue, upon which all the steamers and steam-tugs which were in attendance upon the island started their steam-whistles." Quoted in Ann Bernhard, "Trip to the Statue of Liberty," Museum of the City of New York Junior Bulletin 2, no. 1 (October 1941): 7.