Description:

Bartholdi Frederic

This French language invitation to a farewell dinner held at the Hoffman House on Friday, November 5, 1886 is on a 4.625" x 4.25" cream colored stock card depicting the Statue of Liberty. The Statue, which had been inaugurated nine days earlier, is shown levitating above a fluted punch bowl encircled with ivy tendrils at left. In very good to near fine condition, with expected superficial marks. Mounting traces verso.

 

Three days before the Statue of Liberty was unveiled, its sculptor Bartholdi and the French delegates that had sponsored it arrived at New York. The dignitaries stayed at Hoffman House on Broadway between 24th and 25th Streets. This hotel established in 1864 offered its guests opulently furnished rooms, a European design plan, and Parisian cuisine. On November 5th, French delegates attended a "diner d'adieu" at Hoffman House before departing for France.

 

On October 28, 1886, 24th U.S. President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908), along with Bartholdi and other notables, had attended the dedication ceremony of the Statue of Liberty on Bedloe’s island in New York Harbor. Ticker-tape parades, celebratory dinners, and general Francophilia swept New Yorkers into a frenzy.

 

After the statue’s inauguration, Bartholdi and his compatriots were pestered by earnest American autograph seekers. The Marion Record from Marion, Kansas reported that Bartholdi and other Hoffman House guests were plagued by autograph requests; the newspaper's headline was "Annoyed by Cranks". To beat the crowds and tour other parts of the United States, Bartholdi and his French companions also visited Niagara Falls before their departure.

 

Statue of Liberty sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi (1834-1904) studied painting, sculpture, and architecture under well-known instructors like Viollet-le-Duc in Paris. Following his service in the Franco-Prussian War, Bartholdi became increasingly interested in sculpting monumental works celebrating resistance against oppression, and Enlightenment ideals like Freedom. Bartholdi later designed the “Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World”. The fundraising phase of this process would take years, and indeed long surpass the actual 100th anniversary of the United States. Yet once it was installed in New York in 1886, the massive 151-ft tall copper-clad sculpture of a standing woman would fundamentally change the cityscape.

 

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