La Liberté éclairant le monde
Yesterday was the 125th anniversary of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty after its long trip from France. The creation of the french sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, she was a gift from the people of France. TPM ran some beautiful pictures from the creators workshop and I decided to do the same. And I found a few more.
I also ran across an interesting blog post that maintains that Bartholdi was an ardent abolitionist and the lady was originally a shackled black slave. Purportedly at some time prior to completion her features were anglicized. Wickipedia's entry makes a different case, that she was originally an egyptian fellah, or peasant. I don't really know, I wasn't there...I did learn that Liberty comes from the word Libertas, an ancient roman goddess of freedom worshipped by emancipated slaves.
