La Statue De La Liberté éClairant Le Monde [Statue Of Liberty]. Talansier (Charles) Livre Sur Les Techniques Et La Technologie

Paris, « Le Génie civil », [August] 1883. 8°, 35, (1) pages, in-text illustrations and diagrams, including frontispiece, 2 mid-page figures and one full-page figure, and 2 large folding plates. Publisher's printed wrappers (spine slightly damaged, loss to lower right-hand corner of front cover). Scarce offprint from the periodical « Le Génie civil », and first separately published technical description of the construction of the Statue of Liberty. Conceived as a monumental pylon, the metal framework of the statue, designed by Gustave Eiffel, was a technical forerunner of the Eiffel Tower. « Inspired by the statue of Saint Charles Borromeo on the shores of Lake Maggiore, Bartholdi decided from the outset to use an embossed copper shell with an inner iron frame. [.] Following the death of Viollet-le-Duc, who had designed the first iron framework, Eiffel succeeded him and proposed an entirely different structure, designed to withstand the wind and the expansion of the metal. The core of the framework is formed by a sort of pylon, with four attachment points to the masonry base that supports the statue. The envelope is connected to the pylon by flat iron reinforcements placed on the inner surface of the copper plates. These reinforcements form a real trellis resting directly on the framework. [.] Dismembered into more than three hundred pieces, the Statue was shipped to New York in 1885 and inaugurated in 1886 ». (Sylvie Deswarte & Raymond Guidot, Histoire de la Statue de la liberté, Centre de création industrielle du Centre Pompidou, listing Talansier's publication as the first in the bibliography). In addition to a few copies in the French libraries, WorldCat lists only one copy in the UK (Victoria and Albert Museum) and 3 copies in the USA (California State Library, NY Public Library and Redwood Library & Athenaeum).