Lady Liberty

Her full name is Liberty Enlightening the World, and she crossed the Atlantic in pieces. Some 350 parts, packed into 214 crates, reached New York Harbor in June 1885 aboard the French ship Isère.

The pedestal was not ready. The crates waited while Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper, the World, raised the last of the money from more than 120,000 donors, most of whom gave less than a dollar. The statue was finally raised on its pedestal in 1886 and dedicated that October.

This painting builds her out of white and blue, with red thrown around her like smoke. The rays of the crown are quick dark spikes against a pale burst of sky. The face is calm and simplified, and the robe falls in white strokes streaked with blue.

Her right arm rises to the top edge, where a dab of yellow marks the flame. Below the waist the figure loosens into drips and dragged red paint, so she seems to rise out of the color rather than stand on a pedestal. It is a tall canvas for a narrow wall: an entry, a stairwell, a hallway.