Auguste Bartholdi House Museum

In the historical region of France Alsace, in the city of Colmar in 1922, the Bartholdi Museum was opened. Frederick Auguste Bartholdi (1834-1904) was an outstanding French sculptor, the author of 35 famous sculptures that are located around the world. Among them stand out the most famous who glorified him - the Statue of Liberty in New York (1886), the "Belfort Lion" (1880) in Belfort, "Switzerland defending Strasbourg" (1895) in Strasbourg, etc.

The museum is housed in a three-story mansion where Bartholdi was born and lived for some time. The building itself can be ranked among the historical monuments of France, as it was built in the XV century with two Renaissance portals, and in the XIX century it was supplemented by Bartholdi himself with his ornaments. On the sides of the main entrance there are bas-reliefs of two heraldic lions, and in the center there is a figure of a sitting ram. In the courtyard you can see the bronze composition “Great Foundations of the World” (1902), which is one of the last works of Bartholdi and is a sculptural group of allegorical figures – Labor, Justice and Patriotism. According to the master, it is on these pillars that the world rests.

The museum exposition includes hundreds of sketches and models of various works by Bartholdi. The history of the work on the Statue of Liberty is presented in a large hall, and the entire American cycle occupies an entire floor. The museum contains many drawings, sketches, busts, paintings and other documents of Bartholdi. The interior of some rooms is filled with furniture, personal belongings of the sculptor, which were transferred to his widow Jeanne-Emilia in 1907.