OUR MAIL BUDGET.

Press, Volume XLIII, Issue 6627, 18 December 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

OUR MAIL BUDGET.

A MAMMOTH STATUE. The mammoth statue ef "Liberty enlightening the World," on which men have been at work during the last two years, hammering, riveting, bracing, and bolting her dislocated corps together, was recently dedicated at New York, as briefly recorded in 'our San Francisco mail summary. Compared with this Brobdingnag of statuary all gTitHwg statues are Lilliputian. Such are the gigantic proportions of the gnat goddess that to the ordinary statue the nail of her great toe would be a pedestal, men might sit behind her ears, climb among her bronze ringlets,stroll over her lofty temples and classically moulded aeatures, play at hide and seek among the delineated creases and folds of her graceful robes, stand round the base of her torch, or hold a political meeting on her tablet. This colossal triumph of sculpture is now about eleven years old. It was M. Bartholdi who first conceived the idea ma well as worked rfcout. Before 1875 he and a small company of diatin. guished Frenchmen resolved that France ought to present the sister repubJio with a grand eadeau on the occasion of the centenary celebration of American independence. M. Bartholdi proposed to execute I a statue of Liberty which in its greatness | and grandeur would far surpass the ! greatest statues of modem times or of antiquity. A French-American Committee was formed to see the work carried out to the mutual satisfaction of the two Republics, and an appeal was issued to the French people for funds. The artistic

talent was to be supplied by France, and also the cost of obstruction, and America waa to erect the pedestal. Subscribers were Liberal, and the birth of "Liberty * was celebrated by a banquet in the Hotel dv Louvre in November, 1876. M. Barthsldi first executed a model two metres in height. This model was quadrupled in fixe, and after more study was remodelled by the sculptor and tsen divided into sections, which sections were reproduced four times larger. The work of building up and finishing the statue was then commenced in the ateliers of Gaget, Gauthier aad Co., in the Bus de Cbazelles, Pare Monceau. In May, 1884, the completion of "Liberty** was celebrated. On the 4th of July it was formally handed over to Mr Morton, American Minister at Paris. For some months " Liberty " was made a public exhibition in Paris, and people were allowed to explore her interior for a franc The torch was sent over to be exhibited in Philadelphia and brought back again. M. Bartholdi gives ub some particulars about the proportions of his giant goddess. To the top of her tiara she measures 150 f t; to the tip of the torch 156 ft. Her enormous nose measures about 4ft, and her head, which when it was exhibited at the Paris Exhibition of 1878, proved capable of holding forty people inside at once, is over 13ft in height. Her forefinger is Bft in length and 4!t in circumference. Her eye measures over 2ft across. The total weight ia 200,000 kilogrammes, about 440,0001b, made up of 80,000 kilos, of brosse and 120,000 of iron. Compared with her, the famous Colossus of of Bhodee was a statuette, notwithstanding the legend that ships passed through between its legs. The next greatest statue in the world is that of Arminius of Westthalia, whioh, including the sword which c raises towards the sky, is 90ft. Then comes the St. Charles Borromeo, on the banks of Lago Maggiore, which is 72ft in height. " But this," remarked M. Bartholdi, "cannot be considered aa a work of colossal art It is an ordinary statue enlarged and placed on a deplorable pedestal. It is interesting, however, as I think it is the first example of the use of repousse copper mounted on iron truster, and is the. best known example of this kind of work." The copper is a little thin, measuring only a millimetre, bnt it has stood two centuries." The statue of the Virgin of Puy measures 51ft, and the next notable giant statue is the national statue of Bavaria, which is about 50ft in height. Of the great statues of antiquity, the Olympian Jove, which w»s 40ft, and the Minerva in the-Par-thenon, 87ft, may be mentioned.