THE LARGEST STATUES IN THE WORLD, ANCIENT AND MODERN.
A piece of interesting news comes to us from Egypt regarding a discovery recently made in Lower Egypt, by Mr Flinders Petrie, of the fragments of a colossal statue of King Rameses II., which, calculating the height from the fragments which remain, must have stood considerably over one hundred feet in height! The material employed is granite; and the executing of such a work in such a material, and when completed, rearing it into position, must have involved a profound knowledge not only of high art but of engineering skill. Is it possible that the statue could have been cut out whole in one piece? If so, what lever-power did the Egyptians possess to raise such an enormous weight into a perpendicular position?
Certain it is that these ancient builders knew well how to get over, and did get over, prodigious difficulties, as witness their obelisks, and the enormous stones which compose the platform of the magnificent Temple of the Sun at Baalbec. As there is no stone quarry near, how these vast stones could possibly have been conveyed thither in the first place, and then raised to their position, has been an enigma to all modern architects and engineers by whom the temple has been critically examined, and who have freely confessed that, even with all our modern science of steam-cranes, hydraulic jacks, and railways, the transport and raising of such immense cyclopean masses would have undoubtedly presented many serious difficulties, if indeed it could be accomplished at all.
Many of our readers will doubtless remember Mr Poynter’s grand picture in the Royal Academy of London, a few years ago, entitled ‘Israel in Egypt.’ It represented an enormous mass of sculpture mounted on a wheeled truck, dragged along by hundreds of the unfortunate captive Israelites, who are smarting under the whips of their cruel drivers. Mr Poynter had good authority for his ‘motive-power’ as shown in his picture. So far as we can discover from ancient works or ancient sculptures, the hugest stone masses were transported mainly by force of human muscles, with few mechanical expedients. Levers and rollers seem to have been almost, if not altogether, unknown. The mass was generally placed on a kind of sledge, the ground over which it was to pass lubricated with some oily substance, and the sheer strength of human shoulders was then applied.
The most colossal and by far the most remarkable statue of modern days is that most elaborate and rather eccentric gift of the French nation to the people of America. Not only is it remarkable for its enormous height and gigantic proportions, but for the very singular and ingenious manner in which it has been constructed, so singular, indeed, that at first sight it is somewhat difficult to comprehend the manner in which it has been built up piece by piece, especially when we mention that the several pieces of copper composing the figure have not been cast. How, then, have they been made? This we will try to explain.
The statue is a female figure of Liberty, having on her head a crown, and holding aloft in her hand a torch. The figure is one hundred and five feet high; but, reckoning the extreme height to the top of the torch, the marvellous altitude of one hundred and thirty-seven feet nine inches is reached. The statue is to be reared on a pedestal of solid granite eighty-three feet high, so that the entire work will rise to the immense height of two hundred and twenty feet nine inches! The artist is M. Bartholdi (the family name, by-the-bye, of the great composer best known as ‘Mendelssohn’).
Having first carefully constructed a model in clay about life-size, this was repeatedly enlarged until the necessary form and size were obtained. The next step was to obtain plaster-casts from the clay, and these casts were then reproduced by clever artists in hard wood. The wooden blocks were then in their turn placed in the hands of coppersmiths, who by the hammer alone, it is stated, gave the copper sheets the exact form of the wooden moulds or models; and thus, in this peculiar and laborious manner, the outside copper ‘skin’ of the statue was formed and, to all outward appearance, completed. But as the copper is only one-eighth of an inch thick, an inner skin is also provided, placed about a foot behind the first, whilst the intermediate space will be filled in with sand, especially at the lower extremities, to give the whole a steadfast foundation.
The stability of the figure will not, however, be left to depend solely on these sheets of thin copper and loose sand; and therefore the interior, from top to bottom, will be strengthened by a framework of girders and supports, by which the whole will be knit together in one firm, compact, unyielding mass. As the sheets of copper and the interior framework are simply secured in the ordinary manner by rivets, when it is desired to remove this metallic mountain, all that has to be done is to unrivet the several plates, take down, and pack on board ship for New York.
It is proposed to place this gigantic ‘Liberty’ on Bedloe’s Island, a very small islet lying about two miles south of the Battery and Castle Garden, the lowest point of the island of Manhattan on which the city of New York is built, so that travellers approaching the city by water on that side will get a fine view of the statue of ‘Liberty enlightening the World.’
This mighty work of art, after many years of close and anxious labour, has recently been formally handed over by M. Jules Ferry to the minister of the United States, as a free gift from the people of France to the people of America—a token of love and admiration from the one republic to the other—and measures are being adopted to take the statue to pieces, with a view to its immediate transmission to New York, in which go-ahead city we shall doubtless soon hear of its final erection.
If Mr Flinders Petrie’s discovery of the remains of the gigantic statue of Rameses II. in Lower Egypt, one hundred feet high of solid granite, is the largest statue of antiquity, the ‘Liberty’ of M. Bartholdi may certainly take rank as the most colossal production of modern days.