BARTHOLDI (Auguste). Autograph letter signed, with ORIGINAL - Lot 72

BARTHOLDI (Auguste). Autograph letter signed, with ORIGINAL DRAWING, addressed to Senator Édouard Millaud. S.l., December 24, 1884. 3 pp. in-8, monogrammed letterhead. "Très cher ami, je vous remercie bien de votre bonne lettre, JE ME TROUVAIS MAL AISE AUPRES DE GAGET ET SON ASSOCIE QUI SEMBLAIENT CROIRE QUE J'AVAIS ETE NEGLIGENT. WHICH RESULTED IN DEPLORABLY LONG NOSES [ORIGINAL DRAWING], AND AS I GO TO THE WORKSHOPS EVERY DAY, IT'S NOT PLEASANT. According to your advice, I'm going to try to remind friends who are interested in the matter; but I must confess that I place all my hope in you, who have the triple quality of being my benevolent friend, budget rapporteur and friend of the minister. All this topped off by the fact that you're a member of the committee of an accomplished work where all that's left to do is to get a little laugh from the Minister and honor the work in someone! We haven't asked for anything for either the committee or the artist; let us be granted a small sprig of laurel for our granddaughter before she leaves, it would make a nice impression in the U.S., and all this is useful for the distant country where she's going to live. Put a little jewel in her basket and you'll please her dad, who only dares to count on your friendship and the just influence you enjoy. Please give my best regards to Madame Millaud, with my wife's affectionate regards. May Heaven inspire you and make the star shine that will dispel the fog and bring back the noses, and believe in the most grateful feelings of your devoted friend..." THE ORIGINAL DRAWING FEATURES COMMISSIONED PORTRAITS OF THE FOUNDERS OF THE STATUE OF LIBERTY, ÉMILE GAGET AND JEAN-BAPTISTE GAUTHIER. THE MYTHICAL STATUE OF LIBERTY. The idea of erecting such a monument was first put forward in 1865 by the Republican academician Édouard de Laboulaye, who was hostile to the imperial regime's expedition to Mexico, which was causing tension with the United States. The project for an immense statue, an explicit reference to the Colossus of Rhodes, was financed by private donations, and entrusted to two staunch republicans, the sculptor Auguste Bartholdi, and the architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc for the metal structure - the latter having died in 1879, it was Gustave Eiffel who completed the structure. The copper parts were cast in the Monduit et Bechet workshop, soon taken over by Émile Gaget (a friend of Auguste Bartholdi) and his associate Jean-Baptiste Gauthier. It took almost ten years to complete, from the initial work in 1875 to its installation and inauguration in New York in 1886. Viollet-le-Duc died in 1879, and Gustave Eiffel took over supervision of the steel structure.