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60-597: The bronzes were exhibited at the Paris Exposition Universellein 1878 as the work of Michelangelo, although this attribution was disputed at the time. The works had been acquired the previous year in Venice by Baron Adolphe de Rothschild and Julie de Rothschild. When the Rothschilds' heir Maurice de Rothschild died in 1957, they were purchased by a French private collector. Over the years,

120-534: A Paris cafe was ten centimes. Visitors paid an additional price for several of the exposition's most popular attractions. Climbing the Eiffel Tower cost five Francs; admission to the popular panoramas, theatres and concerts was one franc. Visitors from the French provinces could buy a ticket which included the train fare and entry into the exposition. The total cost of exposition was 41,500,000 francs, while income

180-409: A Paris suburb. Speaking of the tower construction workers, the son-in-law of Eiffel, declared, "no soldier on the battle field deserved better mention than these humble toilers, who, will never go down in history." During the exposition, no one other than construction personnel were allowed higher than the second viewing platform. In the first week of the exposition, 29,922 persons climbed the tower to

240-518: A building by the Paris architect Pierre-Henri Picq . This was an elaborate iron and glass structure decorated with ceramic tiles in a Byzantine-Egyptian-Romanesque style. After the exposition the building was shipped to Fort de France and reassembled there, the work being completed by 1893. Known as the Schœlcher Library, initially it contained the 10,000 books that Victor Schœlcher had donated to

300-674: A critical response from Nicholas Penny in The Burlington Magazine who judged the riders and panthers to be a pastiche of independently made sculptures, none of which derive from models by Michelangelo. A more neutral position on the question of attribution was taken by Daniel Godfrey in The Art Newspaper . In 2019, John Vedder Edwards pointed out that the Rothschild bronzes are composed in an "open profile," with their arms fully extended. This, Edwards argues,

360-583: A drawing of a youth astride a leonine animal in the Musée Fabre in Montpellier, a plausible copy of a lost work by Michelangelo. This resulted in the display of the bronzes in the Fitzwilliam in 2015, and an accompanying publication by Victoria Avery and Paul Joannides which argued that the bronzes were indeed by Michelangelo. The attribution rested on three planks: firstly, on the bronzes' link to

420-470: A few years later. In 2020, Michael Riddick argued that the Rothschild bronzes are more likely to be the work of Francesco da Sangallo , the protégé of Michelangelo and son of Giuliano da Sangallo who mentored Michelangelo in architecture. Paris Exposition Universelle The Exposition Universelle of 1889 ( French pronunciation: [ɛkspozisjɔ̃ ynivɛʁsɛl] ), better known in English as

480-498: A minaret, two mosques, a school and two ornamental gateways. The doors, windows, and architectural fittings and decoration were real, imported from demolished buildings in Cairo. The street was populated by real Egyptians in costumes, including musicians, belly dancers, artists, craftsmen, and vendors of various Egyptian foods and delicacies. The exposition featured several other examples of picturesque habitations and villages from around

540-430: A range of spectacles including Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show, with the sharpshooter Annie Oakley . Transport around the exposition was partly provided by the 3 kilometre (1.9 mi) 600 mm ( 1 ft  11 + 5 ⁄ 8  in ) gauge Decauville railway at Exposition Universelle . The exposition railroad was reported to have carried 6,342,446 visitors in just six months of operation. Some of

600-528: A small Pavillon of Electricity for an electrician named Ferdinand de Boyéres, located just outside the exposition site at avenue de Suffren. The Pavilion of electricity was demolished immediately after the exposition, and the cafe was torn down in 1910. the exhibition will be famous for four distinctive features. In the first place, for its buildings, especially the Eiffel tower and the Machinery Hall; in

660-503: A sonnet for Vittoria Colonna written around 1538-41/44, Michelangelo wrote, "The greatest artist does not have any concept which a single piece of marble does not itself contain within its excess." The tensile strength of bronze sculpture, deriving from a cast of a model, allowed compositions impossible or difficult in marble, such as the raised arms of the panther riders, and witnessed in the almost certainly raised arm of Michelangelo's Pope Julius II in bronze, made in 1508 but destroyed only

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720-456: A special function, as the residence of the President of France when he visited the exposition. Many smaller but picturesque buildings were included within or adjacent to the exposition. The architect Hector Guimard , then just twenty-two years old, built his first two buildings for the exposition; The cafe-restaurant Au Grand Neptune at 148 Quai Louis-Bleriot (Paris 16th arrondissement), and

780-533: A striking contrast to the very modern Palace of Machines, next to it. It was the idea of Baron Delort Gléon, an art collector and specialist in Egyptian art, with financial support from Charles De Lesseps, the head of the Egyptian committee for the exposition, and son of Ferdinand De Lesseps, the builder of the Suez Canal . It was a winding street, with buildings at odd angles, and featured, among other buildings,

840-480: A system of hinged arches (like a series of bridge spans placed not end-to-end but parallel) made of steel or iron. Although often described as being constructed of steel, it was actually made of iron. One important goal of the exposition was to present the latest in science and technology. Thomas Edison visited the exposition to visit a pavilion devoted to his recent inventions, including an improved phonograph with clearer sound quality. Another new technology that

900-459: A tower exactly to those dimensions. The structural design was created by two Eiffel engineers, Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, who along with Eiffel himself, received the patent for the plan. An Eiffel architect, Stephen Sauvestre, designed the curving form and decoration which gave the tower its distinctive appearance. Eiffel was granted exclusive rights for twenty years to operate the tower and its restaurants and viewing platforms. A site next to

960-511: Is definitive of a work being of an artist other than Michelangelo. Edwards does suggest that it is not impossible that Michelangelo may have aided Sangallo with the modelling of the torsos of the original wax or clay figures, however there is no evidence to suggest that this must be so. It should be borne in mind, however, that the "closed profile" was the result of Michelangelo's conceiving each of his marble sculptures from single blocks whose excavation, rough hewing and transport he mostly oversaw. In

1020-421: Is in direct contravention of Michelangelo's principle of organizing his sculptural figures in a classic "closed profile" with the arms and legs drawn tightly in toward the body. Edwards argues that Michelangelo took to heart the instruction of early Renaissance sculptor Donatello that "a sculpture should be able to be rolled down a hill and have nothing break off." The presence of an "open profile," Edwards asserts,

1080-731: Is the " Virgin and Child with St. Anne " in Orsanmichele , Florence . Sangallo was active in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome around 1542 and became Capomaestro and architect of the Duomo in Florence the following year. Among works by him in the church of Santa Maria Pimerana in Fiesole are a self-portrait in relief dated 1542 and his last work, a relief of Francesco del Fede . Other works include

1140-517: The 1889 Paris Exposition , was a world's fair held in Paris , France , from 6 May to 31 October 1889. It was the fifth of ten major expositions held in the city between 1855 and 1937. It attracted more than thirty-two million visitors. The most famous structure created for the exposition, and still remaining, is the Eiffel Tower . The exposition was held to celebrate the 100th anniversary of

1200-526: The Netherlands , Portugal , Russia and Sweden . Nonetheless, many citizens and companies from those countries participated, and a number of countries had their participation entirely funded by private sponsors. They included Germany and Alsace-Lorraine , Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Brazil , China , Denmark , Egypt , Spain, the United Kingdom and its colonies, Haiti , Italy, Luxembourg ,

1260-562: The South African Republic , Switzerland , Uruguay and Venezuela . The British dominions of New Zealand and Tasmania also took part. Because of the theme of the exposition, celebrating the overthrow of the French monarchy, nearly all European countries with monarchies officially boycotted the exposition. The boycotting nations were Germany , Austria-Hungary , Belgium , Spain , the United Kingdom , Italy ,

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1320-528: The Storming of the Bastille , which marked the beginning of French Revolution , and was also seen as a way to stimulate the economy and pull France out of an economic recession. The exposition attracted 61,722 official exhibitors, of whom twenty-five thousand were from outside of France. Admission to the exposition cost forty centimes, at a time when the price of an "economy" plate of meat and vegetables in

1380-846: The Eiffel Tower on a narrow strip of land along Quai D'Orsay and the banks of the Seine. The houses were arranged by century and by continent, beginning with Garnier's idea of prehistoric dwellings and huts, through the Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and other early civilizations, through the Middle Ages and Renaissance to the modern then houses from Japan, and China and the homes of Eskimos, and dwellings from Africa, Japan, China and Lapland, and dwellings of Native Americans, Aztecs and Incas. The dwellings were designed by Garnier with more imagination than strict historical accuracy, but they were picturesque and very popular. The Roman House had

1440-406: The Eiffel Tower. In addition to the architectural displays of France's colonies, the exposition showcased a construction of villages inhabited by natives of the colonies, to be observed by viewers. The colonized people had their daily lives displayed for the exposition visitors, which made some of them uncomfortable. Samba Lawbé Thiam, a jeweler from Senegal who was part of the 1889 Exposition, said

1500-655: The Fitzwilliam Museum coincided with a symposium on the bronzes held at the University of Cambridge in July 2015. A dissenting voice was provided by Frank Zöllner in Die Welt, a circumspect one by David Ekserdjian. In November 2018, the Fitzwilliam Museum announced the completion of its reputed verification of Michelangelo's authorship of the bronzes. This elicited an excited response from the media, focusing on

1560-632: The Forest of Dampierre . Other major buildings included the Palaces of Liberal and Fine Arts, each with a richly decorated dome, facing each other across a garden and reflecting pool between the Eiffel Tower and the Palace of Machines. Both were designed by Jean-Camille Formigé with a similar plan. Both buildings had modern iron frames abundance of glass, but were completely covered with colorful ceramic tiles and sculpted decoration. The exposition included

1620-518: The French section was the Imperial Diamond , at the time the largest diamond in the world. The Mexican pavilion featured a model of an exotic (for Europeans) Aztec temple, a "combination of archeology, history, architecture, and technology." The presentation of Joseph Farcot 's steam engine, that had already won a prize in 1878. Most of the buildings were on military land or city-owned park land, and they were demolished shortly after

1680-590: The Frick Collection, New York, with an attribution to this Dutch sculptor. In 2012, they were exhibited at the Bronze exhibition held at the Royal Academy of Arts as mid sixteenth-century Roman. Paul Joannides, an eminent scholar of Michelangelo's drawings, saw the bronzes in 2002 and was struck by their Michelangelesque qualities. Seeing the bronzes again in 2012, Joannides linked the sculptures to

1740-470: The Montpellier drawing, secondly on their similarity in appearance to other works by Michelangelo, and, thirdly, on a neutron scan, conducted in Switzerland, which dated the bronzes to the first decade of the 16th century. The possibility that they might be by Michelangelo excited experts, particularly given that no autograph bronzes by Michelangelo are known to have survived. The display of the bronzes in

1800-582: The Netherlands, Peru , Portugal, Romania , Russia, Finland and Sweden. The exposition occupied two large sites. The main site was on Champs de Mars on the Left Bank, which had been the parade ground of the Ecole Militaire , and had been occupied by the 1878 Universal Exposition . This was the site of the major part of the exposition, including the Eiffel Tower , Palace of Machines, and

1860-538: The Palaces of Fine Arts and Liberal Arts. The exposition extended across the Seine to the right bank, to the Trocadero Palace , which had been built on the heights for the 1878 Exposition. The slope from the Trocadero Palace down to the Seine was filled with terrace, fountains, gardens and horticultural exhibits. A separate, smaller site was located on the esplanade of Les Invalides , which hosted

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1920-596: The River was chosen, despite the infiltration of river water, since that land was owned by the City of Paris, and the tower could be kept in place after the exposition was completed. The construction lasted two years, two months and five days, and involved five hundred workers, who assembled eighteen thousand iron pieces, each of five meters and carefully numbered, which had been made at a factory in Levallois-Perret ,

1980-410: The anatomical similarities between the bronzes and Michelangelo's works. The announcement coincided with the publication of a comprehensive volume on Michelangelo's work as a sculptor of bronze and the Rothschild bronzes in particular, edited by Victoria Avery and collecting many of the papers presented at the 2015 symposium. Avery's publication took the attribution to Michelangelo as now proven, eliciting

2040-515: The effigy of Bishop Leonardo Bonafede, which lies on the pavement of the church of the Certosa near Florence, and the group of the Virgin and Child and St Anne, executed in 1526 for the altar of Orsanmichele . He was named a member ( Accademico ) of the prestigious Accademia delle Arti del Disegno of Florence, founded by Cosimo I de' Medici in 1563. This article about an Italian sculptor

2100-532: The entire width of the exposition site, the land between the avenue de la Bourdonnais and the present avenue de Suffren, and covered 77,000 square meters, with 34,700 square meters of glass windows. At 111 meters, the Gallery covered the longest interior space in the world at the time, It cost 7,430,000 Francs, or seven times the cost of the Eiffel Tower. It was later used again at the 1900 Universal Exposition and then destroyed in 1910. The Gallery of Machines used

2160-514: The exposition closed. The most notable survivor was the Eiffel Tower , which had been deliberately built on Paris city-owned land, to avoid demolition. The Exhibition included a building by the Paris architect Pierre-Henri Picq. This was an elaborate iron and glass structure decorated with ceramic tiles in a Byzantine-Egyptian-Romanesque style. After the exposition, the building was shipped to Fort-de-France in Martinique and reassembled there,

2220-505: The exposition was intended to be an educational element, but has also historically been framed as an exploitative and patronizing display of colonized people without their consent. This colonial section of the exposition was linked to the Champs de Mars site by a corridor of pavilions along the left Bank. This corridor, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, also featured a display called "The History of Human Habitation", with model houses depicting

2280-482: The exposition, was the tallest structure in the world at the time. A competition to build what was simply called "A tower of three hundred meters" with a base one hundred meters wide, was announced in 1886. It was won by the construction firm of Gustave Eiffel , which had recently built the iron frame of the Statue of Liberty . The Eiffel firm had advance knowledge of the project and, beginning in 1884, had already designed

2340-500: The extraordinary manner in which South American countries are represented. The exposition itself included several large theatres for concerts and spectacles, including one for the dancers of Les Follies Parisiens. A separate theatre presented the music and dance of the French colonies in Indochina. Operas and concerts were also given in the grand hall of the Trocadero Palace. Outside the exposition, other theatres and venues presented

2400-453: The following: "We are very humiliated to be exhibited this way, in huts like savages; these straw and mud huts do not give an idea of Senegal. In Senegal ... we have large buildings, railroad stations, railroads; we light them with electricity. The Bureau of Hygiene does not tolerate the construction of this type of hovel. Those [existing ones] that fall into disrepair are not replaced." The incorporation of indigenous colonized individuals in

2460-601: The history of domestic architecture, designed with much imagination by Charles Garnier , architect of the Paris Opera . There were twenty-two different entrances to the exposition, around its perimeter. They were open from 8 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. for the major exhibits and palaces, and until 11:00 in the evening for the illuminated greens and restaurants. The major ceremonial entrance was located at Les Invalides consisting of two tall pylons with colorful ornament, like giant candelabras. The Eiffel Tower , built especially for

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2520-427: The island. Today, it houses over 250,000 books and an ethnographic museum, and stands as a tribute to the man it is named after who led the movement to abolish slavery in Martinique . The exposition featured numerous fountains and reflecting pools, particularly in the mall that ran between the Eiffel Tower and the Palace of Machines. The largest fountain, near the Eiffel Tower, was entitled "The City of Paris enlightens

2580-600: The locomotives used on this line later saw service on the Chemins de fer du Calvados and the Diégo Suarez Decauville railway . Celebrities and dignitaries from around the world visited the exposition. Thomas Edison , with his wife and daughter, visited the exposition on August 14, 1889, his third day in France, to visit the exhibit where his improved phonograph was being demonstrated. He also ascended to

2640-662: The nations, there were pavilions of specialized industries, such as the Suez Canal company, the pavilion of the Transatlantic steamship company, the telephone and electricity pavilions, and the Pavilions of gas and oil. The Palace of Food Products was a very large and ornate structure, presenting French food and wine products. One of its highlights was an enormous sculpted wooden barrel from Champagne Mercier that could hold 200,000 bottles of champagne. An unusual display

2700-466: The pavilions of the French colonies. This section featured a large assortment of outdoor restaurants and cafes with foods from Indochina, North Africa, and other cuisines from around the world. The colonial pavilions conveyed the multiculturalism of France's colonies, the largest of them being the Palais Central des Colonies, designed by Stephen Sauvestre , who notably contributed to the design of

2760-424: The sculptures had been attributed to other artists, including Tiziano Aspetti , Jacopo Sansovino and Benvenuto Cellini , or their respective circles. In 2002, they were again sold, at Sotheby's London to a British collector for £1.8m, as a mid sixteenth-century Florentine artist in the circle of Benvenuto Cellini . In 2003 they were lent by the new owner to an exhibition, Willem van Tetrode (c. 1525-1580) , at

2820-462: The second place, for its Colonial Exhibition, which for the first time brings vividly to the appreciation of the Frenchmen that they are masters of lands beyond the sea; thirdly, it will be remembered for its great collection of war material, the most absorbing subject now-a-days, unfortunately, to governments if not to individuals; and fourthly, it will be remembered, and with good cause by many, for

2880-527: The third level. In 1909, when Eiffel's concession formally ended, it was decided to preserve the Tower permanently. A second monumental building on the site was the Galerie des machines , by the architect Ferdinand Dutert and engineer Victor Contamin , which had originally been built for the 1878 Universal Exposition . It was a huge iron and glass structure which contained the industrial displays. It occupied

2940-889: The viewing platform of the Eiffel Tower, where he was met by a group of Sioux Indians who were at the exposition to perform in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. He returned to the Eiffel Tower later in his visit (Sept 10), where he was hosted for a lunch in Eiffel's private apartment on the Tower, along with the composer Charles Gounod . Other prominent visitors included the Shah of Persia Nasereddin Shah , Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII ) and his wife, Princess Alexandra ; artists Antoni Gaudi , James McNeill Whistler , Edvard Munch , Rosa Bonheur and Paul Gauguin ; U.S. journalist and diplomat Whitelaw Reid ; author Henry James ; Filipino patriots José Rizal and Marcelo H. del Pilar ; and inventor Nikola Tesla . A central attraction in

3000-441: The viewing platform, though the elevators were not yet in service, and they had to climb by a narrow winding stairway. By the time the exposition finished, after 173 days, 1,968,287 persons had ascended the tower. When the exposition ended, the tower was used for a time as a weather station. In 1904, Eiffel proposed to the French military that a radio transmitter, designed by the pioneer radio engineer Edouard Branly , be placed on

3060-399: The work being completed by 1893. Known as the Schœlcher Library, initially it contained the 10,000 books that Victor Schœlcher had donated to the island. Today, it houses over 250,000 books and an ethnographic museum, and stands as a tribute to the man it is named after who led the movement to abolish slavery in Martinique . Francesco da Sangallo Francesco da Sangallo (1494–1576)

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3120-503: The world watching, cut the cable with an axe. The elevator's fall was halted ten feet above the ground by the Otis safety brakes. There were pavilions especially devoted to the telephone and to electricity, and others devoted to maritime navigation, and another, the Palais de Guerre or Palace of War, to developments in military technology, such as naval artillery. Prefabricated metal housing

3180-483: The world with its torch." The fountain was designed by Jean-Camille Formigé , who designed the nearby Palaces of Fine Arts and Liberal Arts. The other major fountain, not far away, was "The Five Parts of the World", illustrating the continents. It was designed by Francis de Saint-Vidal. The Rue de Caire ("Street of Cairo") was a popular attraction designed to recreate the architecture and street life of Cairo . It provided

3240-520: The world, including a Javanese village and recreated houses of villages from Senegal, Benin, and other colonies, with costumed residents. The Pavilions of the participating nations were located along the edge of the Champ de Mars. The Latin American nations had particularly colorful and lavish structures. The Pavilion of Argentina was one of the largest and most decorative pavilions in the exposition. It

3300-593: Was 49,500,000 francs. It was the last of the Paris world's fairs to make a profit. The countries that officially participated in the exposition were Andorra , Argentina , Bolivia , Chile , Costa Rica , the Dominican Republic , Ecuador , the United States , Greece , Guatemala , Haiti , Hawaii , Honduras , India , Japan , Morocco , Mexico , Monaco , Nicaragua , Norway , Paraguay , Persia , Saint-Martin, El Salvador , Serbia , Siam ,

3360-555: Was an Italian Renaissance sculptor , the son of the architect and sculptor Giuliano da Sangallo . Sangallo was born in Florence . His father took him at the age of ten to Rome where, in 1506, he was present at the identification of the Laocoön group, an event he described in a letter written in 1567, towards the end of his life. Francesco da Sangallo was a pupil of Andrea Sansovino . The earliest dated sculpture attributed to him

3420-401: Was another technology that appeared at the exposition. Gustave Eiffel developed a series of houses with roof and walls of galvanised steel, and wooden interiors, which could be rapidly put together or taken apart, largely for use in French colony of Indochina. Some of them served as ticket booths at the 1889 exposition; one of these old booths, now used as a shelter for hikers, can now be found in

3480-409: Was designed by the French architect Albert Ballu , who won the 1887 design competition. It covered 1,600 square meters, and was fifty meters high, topped by five iron and glass cupolas and surrounded by a frieze of mosaics, ceramics and coloured glass ornaments. After the exposition closed, it was taken apart and shipped to Buenos Aires , where it stood until it was dismantled in 1952. In addition to

3540-414: Was promoted at the exposition was the safety elevator, developed by a new American company, Otis Elevator . Otis built the elevators carrying passengers up the legs of the Eiffel Tower to the first level. When journalists expressed concern about the safety of the elevators, Otis technicians filled one elevator with three thousand kilograms of lead, simulating passengers, and then, with journalists from around

3600-527: Was the "History of Habitation", designed by Charles Garnier , the architect of the Paris opera house named for him. He was then 61 and had designed very few other major projects since the Opera. Although he had also signed a petition, along with other prominent writers and artists, that denounced the Eiffel Tower as an atrocity, he agreed to design a series of houses to illustrate the history of human habitation. The houses, separated by gardens, were placed close to

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