The statues of the bridges of Paris

The bridge, partially submerged in 1910, was reconstructed in the middle of 1920s by the architects Pierre and Louis Guidetti. The command of the stone group, set up at the top of the pylon in the junction of both arcs, was, it, given to the sculptor Paul Landowski, the author of other numerous Parisian monuments. The work represents Saint Genevière protecting the City of Paris, shown under the lines of a girl squeezing against her the municipal nave.

Built for the World Fair of 1900, the bridge Alexandre III, enriched by multiple decorations in the varied forms, in been the object also of a vast statuary program partially dedicated to the French-Russian alliance. In the center of the big arc, the group of the Nymphs of the Seine with the weapons of the City of Paris answers symbolically that of the Nymphs of the Neva with the weapons of Russia.

The bridge of the Invalides was reconstructed in 1855 on the occasion of the World Fair organized in the Champs-Elysées. The median pile is of use as base to two faces of Victoire, symbolizing, the one, the upstream side, ground Victoire and the other one, the side approval, maritime Victoire. They are due to Victor Vilain and Georges Diebolt and make a reference to the military successes taken away by Napoleon III in Crimea.

After the completion of the construction of the bridge, Napoleon III decided that four servicemen in holding symbolizing the various weapons having participated in the battle of the Alma would be placed on the piles of the work. Georges Diebot was indicated to represent, upstream side, the faces of the Grenadier and the Zouave and Auguste Arnaud, the side approval, those of the Artilleryman and the Hunter on foot. Only the statue of the Zouave returned famous by the floods of 1910 and well known of the Parisians, was ready preserved in position during the complete reconstruction of the bridge.

To decorate the bridge of Iéna, Napoleon 1st had planned to make install in the extremities of the work the equestrian statues of four generals of the Grande Armée killed during the campaign of Prussia (1806). Four sculptured groups installed in the entrances of the bridge indeed show horses guided by warriors. On piles, eagles sculptured by Barye in 1850 replaced the figure of Louis XVIII set up under the Restoration in substitution of the imperial Eagle.

The bridge, built after 1900, pulls its originality of the meeting in the same work of a road road and an air traffic intended for the passage of the subway. In the center of the railroad viaduct, the écoinçons of the arc of masonry is occupied by the faces of the Science and the Work and those of the Electricity and the Business. Gustave Michel sculptured in the fallout of bows, being at one with the work, eight faces of smiths and bargemen in the powerful muscle structure fixing to the farms of the bridge cartridge of the Republic.

The Freedom of the bridge of Grenelle is a reduction of the statue set up in New York. Given by the American colony of Paris to the City, she was originally intended for the decoration of the place of the United States. The monumental bronze joined the bridge of Grenelle for the World Fair of 1889. It was separated from the bridge, the summit of one of the piles of which it occupied, at the time of the reconstruction of the work in the 1960s and installed then on a base isolated at the forefront of the path of swans. Originally turned to the upstream and the center of Paris, the statue is turned to the mouth today.

The sculpture, commanded Antoine Injalbert, was limited to piles. The program is traditional: side left bank, two feminine allegories embody the Business and the Abundance whereas, on the other side, two faces symbolize the one, the City of Paris and the other one, the Navigation. The dynamism of faces, the movement of which with regard to the river is reversed of a bank in the other, contrasting with the rigorous prescription of the bridge. The effect produces two nymphs go back up the river whereas two others lower it.

The first royal statue restored in bets, after the Revolution and the Empire, was the one of Henri IV, chosen because of the affection which a majority of the population carried to the founder of the dynasty of Bourbons. A popular subscription was even thrown to finance the command of the monument. A temporary work welcomed Louis XVIII on the bridge in May, 1814.