15 September 2026 — 31 January 2027

A Statue for Liberty: An Immersive Virtual Reality Experience

Alongside the exhibition “Auguste Bartholdi: Liberty Enlightening the World”, the Musée d’Orsay presents an exclusive virtual reality experience, “A Statue for Liberty: Bartholdi’s Dream, from Paris to New York”, unfolding across almost 700 m² of the museum’s Amont Gallery. The immersive production takes visitors to the heart of one of the most ambitious artistic and technological projects of the 19th century. They become active witnesses to the birth of a Franco-American dream that turned into a monument and remains a universal symbol of liberty today. Wearing VR headsets, visitors follow in the footsteps of Auguste Bartholdi, a visionary sculptor driven by a dream larger than himself: from Versailles in 1865, where the republican thinker Édouard Laboulaye suggests a monument to Franco-American friendship, to the bustling Gaget, Gauthier & Cie workshops in Paris ten years later, and on to New York Bay in 1886, where the statue is finally unveiled. Along the way they discover Bartholdi’s sources of inspiration, the technical, political and financial obstacles he overcame and the decisive alliances that made his project possible – the engineer Gustave Eiffel, the newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, the foundry workers and the anonymous donors on both sides of the Atlantic who together gave Liberty her face. Grounded in rigorous scholarship, the project rests on extensive research and detailed historical reconstructions. It immerses visitors in the Gaget, Gauthier & Cie workshops, painstakingly recreated by GEDEON and their partner Aristeas, so that they can experience at full scale this vanished site where nearly six hundred craftsmen and workers built Bartholdi’s copper colossus. Recommended for ages 13 and up; minimum age 8. Because of the technology used, the experience is not recommended for pregnant women, people with heart conditions, those prone to epileptic seizures or migraines, or people with balance or vision disorders. For safety and mobility reasons it is not accessible to visitors using walkers or motorised wheelchairs; manual wheelchairs can be provided and must be used independently or with a companion. The visit can be extended with the exhibition “Auguste Bartholdi: Liberty Enlightening the World”. Scientific advisers: François Blanchetière, Chief Curator of Sculpture and Architecture, Musée d’Orsay, and Juliette Chevée, Director and Curator, Musée Bartholdi, Colmar.

Musée d'Orsay