In 1884, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi Freedom enlighten the world It arrived in pieces and was assembled in New York Harbor, a gift from France, and there it remained for more than 140 years, at the forefront of social and political transformations, booms and busts, centennials, and now, this summer, the bicentennial of the founding of the United States. There are hundreds of replicas around the world, although most have nothing to do with Bartholdi’s hand. However, there are a scattered few that do, and in just over a week, one of those will welcome visitors to the Hamptons Fine Arts Gallery, courtesy of the New York City Gallery of Modern Fine Arts.
The story of the colossal 10-foot-tall bronze statue begins not in 19th-century New York, but in Paris in 2005, at the Musée des Arts et Crafts, where French art dealer Guillaume Duhamel, founder of Duhamel Fine Arts, joined his son’s elementary school class on a field trip. While wandering around, he discovered Bartholdi’s original 1878 plaster model, which measures more than 9 feet tall from base to torch, and had been bequeathed to the museum by his widow in 1907.
The model, which Bartholdi enlarged 16 times to produce the 151-foot-tall copper sculpture in the harbour, was too delicate to be loaned, but Duhamel persuaded the museum to allow a limited edition of 12 bronze casts (the maximum allowed under French law), financing the project himself and promising the first cast to the Museum of Arts and Industries as part of the arrangement.
Using a high-tech 3D digital modeling process, a point-by-point replica of the original plaster was created, and 12 bronze pieces (numbered 1/8 to 8/8 and I/IV to IV/IV) were cast by the Fonderie Susse in Paris, one of the country’s most respected foundries. The first cast went to the Museum of Arts and Industries, where it entered the permanent collection, although it spent some time at Ellis Island for Independence Day 2021 before moving to the home of the French ambassador in Washington, D.C., where it will remain until 2031. The subsequent 11 casts were sold to private collectors, galleries and institutions around the world. American billionaire Leonard Stern was among the original buyers. His crew was installed at 667 Madison Avenue in New York City at the entrance to the Hartz Group Tower.
The cast of Coming to the Hamptons Fine Arts Gallery is the penultimate work in the Duhamel edition (EA III/IV). At $1 million, it’s a bargain, considering he originally sold the molds, According to the New York Timesfor $1.1 million each (or about $1.8 million in today’s dollars). For a massive bronze directly sourced from Bartholdi’s original plaster, licensed by the museum that holds the model and cast by one of France’s major foundries, the price is not difficult to defend. Cast of the fifth edition He went to the block at Sotheby’s At a New York auction, it was sold for $970,000. “The joyful freedom of the world “It is an icon that, while familiar, exploited, trivial and endlessly repetitive, has made us forget the heroic effort and technological ability that contributed to its creation,” the auction house wrote in the catalogue.
The exhibition runs from July 9 to 12, and this bronze will be hard to miss. The timing of the show, of course, is not accidental. As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary, the desire to acquire items that connect Americans to their founding myths has increased dramatically. You only turn 250 once.
