Statue of Liberty cast realises $970,000 at Sotheby's

A three-metre tall cast of the Statue of Liberty has sold for $970,000 at Sotheby's New York.

The lot headlined the New York Sale on April 1, an auction comprised of pieces from and inspired by the city.

Statue Lbierty Bartholdi
The Statue of Liberty was installed in New York in the mid 1880s

Designed by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi in the 1860s, Liberty Enlightening the World is one of the defining icons of America.

Bartholdi had proposed the design in 1871, while on a tour of the US, and had been met with great enthusiasm.

Work started in 1876 and Liberty's arm went on display at the Paris Centennial Exposition that same year. It would be a further 10 years before the complete statue would be installed on Liberty Island in the New York Harbor.

The present lot was cast in 2010 from the original moulds of the prototype.

A New York Mets bullpen cart in the shape of a baseball from around 1967 made $112,500 against a $30,000 estimate, an increase of 275%.

Sotheby's described it as "a fantastic example of whimsical Major League Baseball marketing from the late 1960s, used intermittently at Shea Stadium for more than 20 years...

"Immortalized by its dramatic appearance at the monumental 1986 World Series Championship in which it entered the field of play following the culmination of the Game Seven win, it promptly ran out of power adding further delight to the victory celebration."

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