(CS1.4) Conserving Frederic Bartholdi’s Nova Scotia Sandstone Monument to Liberty

Twelve years before the Statue of Liberty in New York’s Harbor was dedicated, Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi’s first monument to liberty in the United States was unveiled in Boston. The monument, consisting of four carved Wallace sandstone relief panels, sits on top of a slender 175 foot tall tower designed by H.H. Richardson a couple years before he began work on Trinity Church – his well-known masterpiece two blocks away.

The Bartholdi designed monument is completely unique among US monuments in the way that it depicts historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Giuseppe Garibaldi, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, not in scenes drawn from their own famous lives, but as spectators and participants in scenes that depict common events in the lives of ordinary people – baptism, communion, marriage, and death. The monument draws its meaning from the depiction of public figures who were well known nationally and internationally as advocates for liberty, engaged in the quotidian rituals of life. The relief sculptures, commissioned by a Unitarian Church to represent aspects of their beliefs became, in Bartholdi’s handling, a public statement about liberty due to his incorporation of the prominent civic figures into scenes that do not depict any historical events.

The Wallace sandstone units that make up the carved panels are integrated into the loadbearing masonry of the of the tower and cannot be removed without disassembling the upper 50 feet of the tower. The panels are buffeted by high winds, driving rain and water flow from the slate roof above - all of which become more intense over the last few decades as a result of climate change. The original detailing of the stone was not conducive to the long term preservation of the sculptures. There are numerous small panels, and therefore an excess of mortar joints that dissect the sculptures in locations where the carvings are very thin. The Triassic era Wallace Sandstone has the unique property of turning from a kaki color when it is first quarried to either an ochre/ buff or a dark green as it weathers, depending on the degree, and intensity, of wetting.

This presentation will address the challenges of conserving works of art that are structurally part of a wall as well as the impact of increased water flow due to climate change on the sculptures, the masonry wall and the tower’s unique original water evacuation system. Additional focus will be on the tension between conserving the original the highly deteriorated carved stone units and preserving the iconic images of the historic individuals who Bartholdi selected to represent the integration of civic virtues into ordinary life.