She wasn't always green. Honestly, the most jarring thing about looking at the first statue of liberty picture is realizing that "Lady Liberty" originally looked like a giant, shiny penny. Before the salt air of the Atlantic and the pollution of New York Harbor turned her that iconic shade of minty oxidized copper, she was a glowing, brownish-orange beacon.
Most people think she just arrived in one piece, but that’s totally wrong.
The very first photographs of the Statue of Liberty weren't even taken in America. They were captured in the 17th Arrondissement of Paris, specifically at the workshop of Gaget, Gauthier & Co. on Rue de Chazelles. Imagine walking down a narrow Parisian street in 1883 and seeing a massive, copper-skinned head peeking over the rooftops. That's exactly what the early daguerreotypes and albumen prints show—a surreal, disassembled goddess sitting in a cluttered French courtyard.
Where the first statue of liberty picture actually came from
Photography in the 1870s and 1880s was a messy, chemical-heavy process. You couldn't just whip out a smartphone. When Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, the sculptor, began building the statue, he knew he needed a PR campaign. France was gifting the statue, but America had to pay for the pedestal. To raise the cash, Bartholdi used photography.
The earliest images we have—the true contenders for the "first" pictures—usually date back to 1876.
But here is the kicker: the statue wasn't finished.
If you look at the archives from the Musée d’Orsay or the New York Public Library, the earliest photos usually feature just the right arm and the torch. This massive limb was actually sent to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876 to drum up excitement. People paid fifty cents to climb up to the balcony of the torch. It was a literal "pay-to-play" scheme to fund the rest of the construction. So, technically, the first statue of liberty picture that the public ever saw was just a giant arm sitting in a park in Philly, looking completely out of place against the Victorian trees.
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The Paris Workshop Photos
By 1883, the statue was nearly complete in Paris. This is where we get those hauntingly beautiful black-and-white photos of the hollow copper sheets being riveted onto the iron skeleton designed by Gustave Eiffel. Yes, that Eiffel.
In these shots, you see French workmen in newsboy caps and wooden clogs standing next to a giant copper toe. The scale is impossible to wrap your head around until you see a human being standing inside the ear. These images serve as a blueprint of 19th-century engineering. They show the "repoussé" method, where craftsmen hammered thin sheets of copper into wooden molds.
One specific photograph from 1884 shows the statue standing fully assembled in the middle of Paris. She towered over the apartment buildings. It looks like a scene from a sci-fi movie. She stayed there for six months because the Americans hadn't finished the pedestal on Bedloe's Island yet.
Why these early photos look so different
If you stumble across an original first statue of liberty picture, you might notice the face looks slightly more "stern" than you remember. Part of that is the lighting. Early photographic plates had a hard time capturing the nuances of reflected light on polished copper.
- The copper was only 2.4 millimeters thick.
- The original color was that of a brand-new teapot.
- There were no stains or "tears" under the eyes yet.
Albert Fernique was one of the main photographers tasked with documenting this. His work is the reason we know what the internal iron framework looked like before it was covered up forever. His photos aren't just art; they are forensic evidence of a gift that almost didn't happen due to lack of funding.
Actually, the whole thing was kind of a mess. Joseph Pulitzer eventually had to shame the American public into donating pennies to get the pedestal built. While the Americans were bickering about the bill, the French were busy taking photos of the "Lady" sitting in their backyard.
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The journey across the pond
In 1885, they took her apart. 350 individual pieces. 214 crates.
The French navy ship Isère carried her across the ocean. There are some grainy, incredibly rare photos of these crates arriving at the docks. To me, those are some of the most fascinating "statue of liberty pictures" because they represent the statue at her most vulnerable—literally a giant puzzle waiting to be put back together.
When she was finally dedicated on October 28, 1886, the weather was terrible. It was foggy and rainy. If you look at the photos from the inauguration, you can barely see her through the mist of the harbor. It’s a far cry from the crisp, clear shots taken in the Parisian sun a few years earlier.
Common misconceptions about the early images
People often see a photo of the statue's head in a garden and think it's from the 1900s. Nope. That was the 1878 Paris World’s Fair.
Bartholdi was a master of "teasing" the project. He would show the head in one city and the arm in another. He was basically the Steve Jobs of the 1880s, releasing "beta versions" of his monument to keep the venture capital (donations) flowing.
Another thing: if you see a photo where she looks green, it’s not from the 1880s. It took about 20 to 30 years for the patina to fully develop. By 1906, the entire statue was covered in that green film. The War Department (who ran the statue back then) actually wanted to paint her! Thankfully, the public protested, and the oxidation was left alone.
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How to find authentic high-res versions of these photos
If you're a history nerd or just want a cool print for your wall, don't just grab a low-res thumbnail from a Google search. You want the real deal.
The Library of Congress holds the definitive collection of the Gaget, Gauthier & Co. workshop photos. You can search their digital archives for "Bartholdi" or "Statue of Liberty construction." Most of these are in the public domain now, meaning you can download the high-resolution TIFF files for free.
The New York Historical Society also has an incredible array of stereoscopic views. These were the 19th-century version of 3D glasses. You’d put two nearly identical photos into a viewer, and the statue would pop out in three dimensions. Seeing the first statue of liberty picture in a stereoscope is probably the closest we will ever get to standing in that Paris workshop in 1882.
To truly appreciate the history of this monument, you have to look past the green goddess we see today. You have to look at the raw, copper-colored photos of a giant being built by hand in a cramped French courtyard.
Actionable Steps for History Enthusiasts:
- Search the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC). Use the term "Statue of Liberty construction" to find the original Albert Fernique plates.
- Look for "Patina" stages. Compare photos from 1886, 1900, and 1910 to see the chemical transformation of the copper skin.
- Visit the Statue of Liberty Museum on Liberty Island. They have high-quality reproductions of the workshop photos and even a full-scale copper replica of Lady Liberty's face so you can see the hammer marks visible in the early photographs.
- Verify the Source. If you find an image claiming to be "the first," check for the Rue de Chazelles workshop background. If it's on a pedestal, it's post-1886. If it's in a park, it's likely the 1876 Philadelphia Expo or the 1878 Paris Fair.
The history of the statue is a history of photography itself. As cameras got better, our "Lady" grew up, changed color, and became the symbol she is today. It all started with a few guys in a workshop and a very large copper nose.