Who designed the Statue of Liberty, the French monument dedicated in New York Harbor in 1886?

Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi designed the Statue of Liberty, which was dedicated in New York Harbor in 1886.

Bartholdi was a French sculptor who developed the colossal figure known formally as Liberty Enlightening the World. The statue was presented as a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States. Its themes included liberty, republican ideals, and the friendship between the two nations.

Gustave Eiffel and engineer Maurice Koechlin designed the statue’s internal iron framework, but Eiffel did not design the sculpture itself. American architect Richard Morris Hunt designed the pedestal. Édouard de Laboulaye, a French political thinker and abolitionist, helped promote the project but was not its sculptor.

The statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886. Its tablet carries the date July 4, 1776, in Roman numerals, while a broken chain beneath the figure’s feet symbolizes liberation from oppression.