MCI Project Summaries 2008 - Smithsonian Institution

Office of the Architect of the Capitol
MCI 6183 Statue for Freedom Model
MCI Staff: Carol A. Grissom
The plaster model for the 19½-foot-high bronze statue of Armed Freedom atop the U.S. Capitol
was cast from a clay model completed by Thomas Crawford in Italy just before his death in
1857. In Washington, D.C., Clark Mills cast the bronze statue in sand from impressions made by
the plaster sections, and in 1863 the statue’s five bronze sections were bolted together atop the
new Capitol dome. In 1993 the model was transported in pieces to the Russell Senate Office
Building, where it was reassembled by Capitol staff in the basement-level rotunda adjacent to the
subway leading to the Capitol. In 2007 Carol Grissom began advising Curator of the Capitol
Barbara Wolanin regarding proposed cutting, transport, and reassembly of the model for display
in the new Capitol Visitors Center. Cutting of the statue began in June 2008 under the
jurisdiction of the Capitol’s Construction Division, and reassembly and painting of the statue
were completed at the beginning of September 2008.
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