From three hundred copper plates to a global icon: the secrets behind the making of the Statue of Liberty.

On the other side of the diptych, the Musée des Arts et Métiers reveals the behind-the-scenes story of the creation of this colossus. The immersive scenography, accompanied by headphones, retraces in nine sequences the work of the Monduit and Bechet workshops, formerly Gaget and Gauthier, rue de Chazelles, in the Plaine Monceau district. It is there that the workers cold-hammer three hundred copper plates, shaped on wooden templates made from plaster models. The process is as colossal as it is meticulous. Bartholdi's initial model, 2.11 meters high, was enlarged sixteen times, using compass, point, and grid, to the forty-six meters of the final statue.

The museum displays several relics from the construction site: a forty-kilogram hammered copper index finger, a 135-centimeter plaster ear, a 1/16 scale head model, and a copper fragment engraved with Bartholdi's monogram, once sold as a souvenir. For Bartholdi was also a remarkable publicist. To finance his project, he opened the construction site to the public, sold photographs, engravings, miniatures, and copper fragments, and organized a lottery. Even before its inauguration, the Statue of Liberty had become a collective adventure.

MUSEUM OF ARTS AND CRAFTS
From September 22, 2026 to August 1, 2027
60 rue Réaumur, 75003 - Metro: Arts et Métiers (Lines 3 and 11) - Tue.-Sun. 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Thu.
until 9 p.m. Closed Mon. - Price: €21
€12: Museum entrance ticket - €9: Ticket for the immersive experience)
Reduced rate: €18 - Free for under 26s (free admission to the museum only, does not include the immersive experience)