Illustration from Frank Leslie's newspaper entitled: "Preparing the Statue of liberty on Bedloe's Island, for the formal unvailing [sic] on October 28th (1886). Present condition of the work from a sketch by a staff artist. The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Fr矇d矇ric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886. The statue, a gift to the United States from the people of France, is of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom, who bears a torch and a tabula ansata (a tablet evoking the law) upon which is inscribed the date of the American Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. A broken chain lies at her feet. The statue is 151 feet and 1 inch high, and the top of the torch is at an elevation of 305 feet 1 inch from mean low-water mark. It was the largest work of its kind that had ever been completed up to that time, and was the tallest structure in New York City until the Empire State building topped it in 1929. The statue is an icon of freedom and of the United States: a welcoming signal to immigrants arriving from abroad.