Who designed the Statue of Freedom atop the United States Capitol dome?

Thomas Crawford designed the Statue of Freedom atop the United States Capitol dome.

Crawford’s bronze allegorical figure was placed on the Capitol in Washington, D.C., in 1863. The statue depicts a woman wearing a military helmet and holding a sheathed sword, a laurel wreath, and a shield. It rises above the building’s dome and faces east toward the main entrance and the rising sun.

The sculpture is sometimes confused with the Statue of Liberty, but the two are different monuments. The Statue of Freedom belongs to the U.S. Capitol and was designed by Crawford, an American sculptor working in Rome. The Statue of Liberty was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and stands in New York Harbor.

Crawford died in 1857, before the statue was cast and installed. The completed figure weighs approximately 15,000 pounds and stands about 19½ feet tall. Its original name was Freedom Triumphant in War and Peace, although U.S. government publications now identify it officially as the Statue of Freedom.