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Reader responses:

our lion investigations continue

Reproduction of Belfort Lion

Regarding the Lion of Belfort

I read with interest your reader's note concerning the "Lion of Belfort" and did a little research to get some particulars on the structure. (See photo above. You can find this reproduction of the Belfort Lion in Paris! Search the web on Belfort Lion for even more info.)

The statue was completed in 1880 by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi (1834-1904) who was born in Colmar in Alsace, France, to commemorate the valiant 103 day resistance by 17,000 Frenchmen in the Alsaceion town of Belfort to an attack on that city by 40,000 Prussian troops during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. The Prussians held the town under siege from December 1870 to February 1871 but were not able to take their objective. 

After an armistice between Germany and France was signed on February 15, 1871, the town was surrendered on February 18,1871, but it was never taken by force. Bartholdi sculpted the statue out of many individual blocks of pink and red sandstone cut from a hill which towers over the city of Belfort. These individual stones were then moved and assembled just below Belfort Castle into the famous Lion of Belfort. The statue is 22 meters long and 11 meters high and is built, on one side, into the castle or cliff wall so that it can be seen from three sides only. 

The statue was intended to face Prussia to the east to show Belfort's defiance of that country and its attack on the city but German protests caused the lion to be erected facing west. The bronze in the center of Denfert-Rochereau Square in Paris is a copy of the Belfort original. Bartholdi, the artist, was the sculptor who in 1865 conceived the idea of France giving the US a monument for its 1876 Centennial to commemorate France's aid to and support of the colonies during the American Revolution and America's successful quest for liberty. 

Bartholdi designed "Liberty Enlightening the World" and constructed the 450,000 lb. monument from copper plates attached to a steel armature which was designed by Gustave Eiffel who created the Eiffel Tower. The statue was completed in 1884 and shipped to the US where it was reassembled on Bedloe's Island in NY harbor and dedicated by President Grover Cleveland on October 28, 1886, ten years after the Centennial. In 1956 Congress, with the approval of President Eisenhower, changed the name of the location to "Liberty Island".

From Ronald W. Rogers, provider of information relative to the 
Confederate Lion
of Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia


We heard from Jacques Dujardin, who sent us a couple of his lion photos too. Check out the following photos! Thanks, Jacques!

It's Greek to me
Here are a couple of lions above an archway of a ruin in
Mycene Greece

Lion statues in Egyptian ruins of Philae
Clever Magazine has been investigating lion statues for years. If you're interested, 
here's the list of articles on the subject so far:

The Investigation begins ~ a San Francisco lion, Italian lions
Lion Symbolism ~ Venice lions
More Lions ~ US lions, postcard lions
The Investigation continues ~ reader responses
The Lion of Lucerne ~ the Swiss lion
Lions in Paris ~ Paris photo essay
Even more on Lions ~ a reader response
Miscellaneous Lions ~ continuing the investigation
More Paris Lions ~ further contributions to our growing lion statue archive
Scott Beavin's Lion Photos ~ photos of Firenze
Confederate Memorial Lion ~ a memorial to Confederate soldiers
More lions ~ info about Belfort Lion and a few more photos
Timmie's Lion Obsession, a photo essay

If you have any lion photos or information to share, we'd love to hear from you. 
Contact editor@clevermag.com

For more information on Chinese Lion Statues, check out Greg Pringle's website

We heard  from Maarten from The Netherlands, who photographs lion statues for his website, which is called Shooting Safari: Lions. Check it out!


Find it here!     

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