# What color was the statue of Liberty when it arrived?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-the-statue-of-liberty-when-it-arrived/519356>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 29, 2009, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-the-statue-of-liberty-when-it-arrived/519356 "2009-11-29T18:45:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\
**Post date:** [November 29, 2009, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-the-statue-of-liberty-when-it-arrived/519356/1 "2009-11-29T18:45:58Z")

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Somewhere I heard that the Statue of Liberty was copper when it arrived, and was originally assembled. It makes sense, and I saw something that may have corroborated that, but I can’t find the pic, and I’m not interested in trying to track that down.

So, did it originally look copper, or did it look greenish, or some other color?

Thanks,  
hh

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**Author:** ![JWT\_Kottekoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@JWT\_Kottekoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JWT_Kottekoe)\
**Post date:** [November 29, 2009, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-the-statue-of-liberty-when-it-arrived/519356/2 "2009-11-29T19:27:19Z")

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It takes years for the patina to develop, so I would guess it was not green when it was assembled in New York.

I can’t vouch for its veracity, but the following statement makes sense. It comes from: [http://www.endex.com/gf/buildings/liberty/libertyquestions.htm#solq2](http://www.endex.com/gf/buildings/liberty/libertyquestions.htm#solq2)

“As it was assembled, the statue was a dark brown, almost black color.  
The copper color had weathered to dark as it was built in Paris.  
It took about 20 years for the black color to turn to the color of  
copper patina, the greem color you see today.”

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**Author:** ![Gotterfunken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/58956e/32.png) [@Gotterfunken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gotterfunken)\
**Post date:** [November 29, 2009, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-the-statue-of-liberty-when-it-arrived/519356/3 "2009-11-29T21:33:26Z")

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The wikipedia entry for [the Statue of Liberty](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty) currently includes a few images that give an idea of her original copper color–especially the colored [Currier & Ives](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Currier_and_Ives_Liberty2.jpg) print and the [full-scale replica of her face](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Face_of_Statue_of_Liberty_2.jpg) that’s on view inside the pedestal.

There are also some photos from the 1878 World’s Fair in Paris, and the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, that show those completed fragments (how’s that for an oxymoron?) which were exhibited at those events to drum up public interest in the project. Since the photos are black and white, they don’t reveal the color of the statue, but you can get some sense of the dark tone of the copper, anyway. Here’s a good stereoscopic photo from the Philly exhibition: [http://z.about.com/d/history1800s/1/0/o/4/-/-/statue-liberty-hand-torch-display.jpg](http://z.about.com/d/history1800s/1/0/o/4/-/-/statue-liberty-hand-torch-display.jpg)