COLMAR, France — Colmar, France is known for its charm, canals and the birthplace of an important Frenchman.
Walk around this fairy-tale village and you'll see his work. When you spot a certain lady at the entrance of Colmar, you will know immediately why August Bartholdi is famous.
He is the father of the Statue of Liberty.
The Bartholdi museum documents the life of the French sculptor. You learn that before he built the Statue of Liberty, Bartholdi wanted to build a similar sculpture for Egypt to put at the entrance of the Suez Canal.
"This monument should have pictured a woman holding a torch as well. It would stand for Egypt enlightening the Mediterranean Sea and the contribution of Egypt to civilization. The project was not achieved because of lack of money," said Colmar tour guide Angela Rogers.
Bartholdi then turned his attention to creating the Statue of Liberty for the United States.
"From the beginning, from 1865, Bartholdi had the idea of creating a monument that would embody values that were shared both by the French and the U.S.," said Bartholdi Museum curator Juliette Chevee. "So, the idea of Bartholdi was to create a moment dedicated to liberty, of course. That's a very abstract concept, actually. To embody this value, he had the idea of designing the figure of a woman. This was pretty classical by then. To embody abstract concepts by the figure of a woman that would stand for the allegory of that concept."
"To make his message clearer, Bartholdi added some elements to his statue. For instance, a chain. A broken chain. It is a strong symbol of liberty and of freedom. Initially, he had the idea to make the lady hold the chains in her left hand, but then decided she should step on the broken chain. That's what you see now on the monument," said Chevee. "In the left hand of the liberty, he added a tablet on which was written the date of the Declaration of Independence of the United States."
"Another strong symbol of liberty was the torch. So, it's a light that's supposed to enlighten the ocean and light the world just as liberty should light for people," said Chevee.
Building the Statue of Liberty was a giant project that required private funding.
"The idea is it would not be a diplomatic present from France to the United States, but a gift from the French people to the American people," said Chevee.
Creating the Statue of Liberty would require a team of workers, including someone with experience in building iron bridges to keep the statue in place.
"This young engineer was Gustav Eiffel," said Chevee.
The man who would one day create the most famous landmark in France was the engineer who designed the internal structure of the Statue of Liberty.
"He wanted to construct a monument that would be able to resist the heavy winds that you have in the Hudson Bay," said Chevee.
"Gustav Eiffel designed this and Bartholdi designed the envelope, the statue itself," said Chevee.
Early models at the Bartholdi Museum give insight into what the creator imagined for the United States.
"The statue was completely assembled in the studios of Bartholdi in Paris, then dismantled and then shipped to the U.S. in New York, where the pedestal was built and the statue reassembled on the pedestal," said Chevee.
The replica of the Statue of Liberty at the entrance of Colmar isn't the only one in France.
"There's the biggest one in Paris is right near the Eiffel Tower. A lot of people see it on a boat. I think a lot of people are surprised when they go past it and see this replica," said Oliver Gee who hosts the Earful Tower podcast. "But they've made seven more and they get progressively harder to find."
Gee wrote an article on his website with pictures of the other replicas in museums, gardens, the Latin Quarter, and a residential building.
"The only way you're ever going to see this is if you friend someone inside, make a delivery there or pretend that you're a friend or a delivery driver, which is what I did," said Gee.
Americans know the importance of Lady Liberty. In this part of the Olympic host country there is pride for the man behind it all.
"The French people in Alsace are very proud to have Bartholdi as the creator of this liberty statue," said Rogers.