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USA: 'The Great Bartholdi Statue, Liberty Enlightening the World, The Gift of France to the American People'. New York, Currier and Ives, 1885

USA: 'The Great Bartholdi Statue, Liberty Enlightening the World, The Gift of France to the American People'. New York, Currier and Ives, 1885

The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World; French: La Liberté éclairant le monde) is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York City, in the United States. The copper statue, designed by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, a French sculptor, and dedicated on October 28, 1886, was a gift to the United States from the people of France.

The statue is of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess, who bears a torch and a tabula ansata (a tablet evoking the law) upon which is inscribed the date of the American Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. A broken chain lies at her feet. The statue is an icon of freedom and of the United States: a welcoming signal to immigrants arriving from abroad.

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