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ALS in French, signed “Bartholdi,” one page both sides, 5.25 x 8, July 19, 1883. Addressed from Paris, a handwritten letter to French politician and historian Henri Martin from the young sculptor Auguste Bartholdi, fully immersed in the final construction and promotional stages of the Statue of Liberty, in part (translated): “I thank you very much for your kind little note: it makes me happy by its friendly character; but makes me sad on the other hand, because I regret not being able to leave! There are too many things that require my presence and I find it impossible to leave! I would have been very happy to be able to travel with you and see with you the beautiful things of the past that you know how to bring back to life before our eyes. Alas, necessity rules and I must stay on shore. I recently saw that you were in touch with the Hungarian Travelers' Society. If you wanted to send them to see the Statue of Liberty, I am sending you an invitation card attached that you could send to them, if necessary I will go and receive them, if I am informed of the day and time. This would perhaps not be a bad thing to do for the moral character of our work.” In fine condition.
The Statue of Liberty project began on April 21, 1865, when Edouard de Laboulaye, professor of law at the Collège de France and admirer of young American democracy, submitted the idea that France offer the United States a statue symbolizing ‘Liberty Enlightening the World,’ thus sealing the friendship between the two countries. The design came from the young Auguste Bartholdi, distinguished by the creation of his colossal Lion of Belfort. The defeat of France at Sedan, followed by the Paris Commune and the resulting political and financial problems, delayed the project by 10 years.
The statue was to be inaugurated on the centenary of the independence of the United States, on July 4, 1876, but construction had yet to begin at the establishments of the Gaget-Gauthier & Cie foundry in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. Bartholdi would have been inspired by his dear mother's features for the statue's face, and the manufacture of the torch fell to Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. Financing proved to be an obstacle course, with the appeal for American and French donations being essential. The hand was presented at the Universal Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876 and the head was admired at the Champ de Mars, during the exhibition of 1878. Gustave Eiffel, a brilliant designer of iron bridges, was chosen to build the iron framework of the Lady. The 46-meter-high building was completed in July 1884. Bartholdi, after traveling to New York, chose the small island of Belloe's Island to house his masterpiece. She was dismantled piece by piece to be transported by boat to Le Havre on May 21, 1885. She triumphantly entered New York Harbor on June 17th, and the inauguration took place on October 28, 1886, in the presence of American President Grover Cleveland.
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