The Statue of Liberty, formally titled Liberty Enlightening the World, is one of the most iconic sculptures in the Western world and is often seen as a symbol of American freedom. The United States has debated immigration since the country's founding, and the Statue of Liberty-a potent symbol for immigrants-is often invoked as an argument for why we should usher in those who seek safety and opportunity with open arms. That might be surprising to people more familiar with the statue’s French roots than its Arab ones.
Designed and sculpted by French sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, France donated this colossal statue to the United States in 1875 to commemorate their alliance during the American Revolution. The statue depicts a crowned Liberty, personified as a woman, lifting up a torch with her right hand as her left hand clutches a tablet bearing “JULY IV, MDCCLXXVI,” the Roman-numeral date on which the Declaration of Independence was adopted. In “The New Colossus,” Emma Lazarus calls her the “Mother of Exiles,” and for Americans new and old, her image has become one of the most recognizable in the world.
But what do we know about the real-life woman who inspired Lady Liberty? Answering this question requires going back in Bartholdi’s writings and sketches-not of the Statue of Liberty but of an earlier statue that bears a stark resemblance to his American monument.
The Statue of Liberty by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi is a woman with a secret past. The Green Goddess as we know her today has many secrets. She was not always destined for the United States. She was originally conceived as a beacon for the Suez Canal. Egypt, Or Progress Carrying Light To Asia. Yes, she was always a tall woman who lit the way for others. But originally, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi envisioned a dark-skinned peasant girl in Egyptian robes. Instead of a torch, that girl held a lamp. In some versions, she was holding a jar, or balfalis, a vessel that symbolized abundance and good fortune. In her gig at the Suez Canal, she was to stand for friendship and free navigation.
Bartholdi's conceptual rendering for Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia
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Bartholdi's Egyptian Inspiration
Bartholdi began to dabble in colossal statuary in the late 1850s, nearly 30 years before the Statue of Liberty was completed. He described his interest in colossal statuary as having been informed by classical monuments, like the Colossus of Rhodes. Frederic Auguste Bartholdi visited Luxor, the ancient capital of Thebes in Egypt in 1855. He was in his 20s then and deeply affected by its enormous statues. He was particularly touched by the Colossus of Rhodes.
The style he studied “with the greatest attention,” however, was that of the ancient Egyptians. Bartholdi journeyed to Egypt about 1856 and was awestruck at the Colossi of Memnon, two statues of the pharaoh Amenhotep III. At 70 feet (21 meters) tall, they had towered over the ruins of ancient Thebes for over 3,200 years. Bartholdi wrote that “these granite beings, in their imperturbable majesty, seem to be still listening to the most remote antiquity. Their kindly and impassable glance seems to ignore the present and to be fixed upon an unlimited future….[T]he design itself expresses, after a fashion, infinity.”
Colossus of Rhodes
Bartholdi’s journey to Egypt was enormously transformative and influential. In 1868 he returned to marvel again at the Colossi, and in 1869 Bartholdi submitted a colossal statuary proposal to the Egyptian khedive, Ismāʿīl Pasha. Bartholdi hoped that the khedive would use his sculpture design to commemorate the completion of the Suez Canal, which had opened that year. As the shortest path between the Mediterranean and Red Seas, the Suez Canal functioned as a literal sea-bridge between Europe and Asia. If selected, Bartholdi hoped that his colossus would be seen as a symbol of cultural progress and understanding.
Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia
Bartholdi’s design for the khedive was modeled after a woman fallāḥ, or Egyptian peasant. Unfortunately, very little is known about this fallāḥ besides her socioeconomic status; Bartholdi left no records that indicate any interest in her personal story. Despite this, selecting a woman was no accident.
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Bartholdi was conscious of a centuries-long European artistic tradition of personifying values, ideas, and even countries in the forms of women. These personifications were venerated and sometimes worshipped, but of particular importance for Bartholdi was that they lived and lingered in the minds of those who viewed their likenesses. This logic is clear in the name, form, and function of Bartholdi’s contest submission.
Titled Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia, this colossal woman was to be positioned in the middle of the Suez Canal atop a monumental plinth. Dressed in what Egyptians would have recognized as the clothes of a fallāḥ and immortalized as a monument, she would have been a point of pride for Egyptians of all social classes. She doubled as a lighthouse, holding a torch up high and radiating light from her head. As ships from countless nations passed beneath her, this woman was to be seen as the physical embodiment of Egypt and its progress.
Although Bartholdi’s submission may have impressed the khedive, building the colossus would have been enormously expensive. Egypt was facing financial problems that likely caused the khedive to shift his attention elsewhere, and the project was terminated.
But if Bartholdi’s colossal fallāḥ seems recognizable, that is because he was determined to repurpose his scrapped design. Between 1870 and 1871, he began to alter the details of his sketches. The woman’s characteristic Egyptian dress gave way to Greek robes, and light beamed from her torch instead of her head. A diadem would later replace her head covering, while her left hand soon bore a tablet. But like the sketches from 1869, she still held her torch with an upstretched arm, her other limb positioned at her waist.
The Egyptian peasant became the robed woman we know and love today. She was designed to represent Libertas, the Roman goddess who carries a torch and a tablet evoking the law.
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Statue of Liberty
The Suez Canal Connection
Historically, the Suez Canal is one of the most important infrastructure projects ever constructed in Egypt and the Middle East. By providing a shortcut for vessels so they could skip the treacherous trip around the Southern tip of Africa, the 101-mile-long Suez Canal promised to transform international shipping.
The canal was the brainchild of a Frenchman, Ferdinand de Lesseps. His energetic advocacy along with the back breaking labor from hundreds of thousands of Egyptians made the canal a reality. Funding for the canal came from the sale of shares and bonds to European investors. When completed in 1869, the Suez Canal was a liquid avenue of commercial advance in the endless march to open markets around the world. Globalization glided on the waters that filled the canal and along with it went people and products headed further east. De Lesseps’ dream had become reality.
Lesser known, than de Lesseps is another fellow Frenchman, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi. He also dreamed of leaving his mark on the Levant. His failure is almost as remarkable as de Lesseps’ success. That is because Bartholdi’s dream eventually came to fruition, not beside the Suez Canal as he so fervently wished.
From Egypt to New York
The statue’s designer, Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, was also French, but he found inspiration in a very different place: Egypt. Bartholdi envisioned a colossal monument featuring a robe-clad woman representing Egypt to stand at Port Said, the city at the northern terminus of the canal in Egypt. To prep for this undertaking, Barry Moreno, author of multiple books about the statue, writes that Bartholdi studied art like the Colossus, honing the concept for a figure called Libertas who would stand at the canal. Edward Berenson, author of Statue of Liberty: A Transatlantic Story, writes that Bartholdi’s concept morphed from “a gigantic female fellah, or Arab peasant” into “a colossal goddess.” But Egypt, which had invested enormous amounts of time and money into the landmark canal, was not as eager about Bartholdi’s idea. Eventually, a 180-foot tall lighthouse was installed at Port Said instead. But Bartholdi was not discouraged.
In the 1870s, French abolitionist Édouard de Laboulaye joined forces with sculptor Frédéric Bartholdi and renowned engineer Gustave Eiffel to dream up a monumental gift for the United States. The statue would be a symbol of friendship between the two nations, and a celebration of the end of slavery. De Laboulaye quietly hoped that such a gift would inspire his own people to fight for their liberty.
Thus, the Statue of Liberty, initially conceived as a symbol of progress for Egypt, found its home in New York Harbor, becoming an enduring emblem of freedom and opportunity for the world.
Statue of Liberty: A Symbol of Freedom and Inspiration
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