On a corner of Plaza Barrancas de Belgrano, in Buenos Aires, a small woman in a toga raises a torch over the joggers and the dog walkers. She was made by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, the French sculptor behind the Statue of Liberty, and some porteños will tell you she lit up first.
As New York’s Lady Liberty turns 140 on October 28, 2026, her Argentine sister has a story that still doesn’t have a clean ending.
What you need to know about the Statue of Liberty
- Where: Plaza Barrancas de Belgrano, at 11 de Septiembre and La Pampa, Belgrano, Buenos Aires
- Who made it: French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi
- Material: cast iron, from the Val d’Osne foundry in Paris
- Size: almost 3 meters tall, roughly 10 feet
- The debate: the city says it was unveiled in 1886; a local history book says 1875
Who gifted the Statue of Liberty to the United States?
France did. The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France to the United States, meant to symbolize the friendship between the two countries and mark 100 years of American independence, according to the U.S. National Archives. France formally presented it in Paris on July 4, 1884, and the statue was dedicated in New York Harbor on October 28, 1886.
It was a team effort with a twist. Bartholdi designed her, and after the first engineer on the project died in 1879, Gustave Eiffel was brought in to finish the iron frame inside. The pedestal was the American side of the deal, and when the money ran out in 1884, newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer raised the rest by promising to print the name of every single donor.
The Statue of Liberty in Buenos Aires
The Argentine version is no tourist-shop copy. The Buenos Aires city tourism office describes it as a replica made by the same author as the original, and the base carries the mark of the foundry where it was cast: “Val d’Osne – 8 Rue Voltaire, Paris.”
She is much smaller than her New York sister, and made of painted cast iron instead of copper. Depending on how the paint and the weather have treated her, she can look reddish or moss green, as Argentine newspaper El Cronista has noted.
Plenty of people walk right past her. Barrancas de Belgrano is a leafy park with more than 60 plant species and many 19th-century sculptures, so Lady Liberty shares the spotlight.
So which one came first?
This is where it gets fun, and a little messy.
The Buenos Aires city tourism site says the Belgrano statue was inaugurated in 1886, about 25 days before New York’s. That would put her ahead of New York, if only by a few weeks.
El Cronista tells a different story. According to the paper, in 1990 a French member of a Statue of Liberty friends club spotted a photo of the Argentine version and wrote to Buenos Aires culture officials. They answered by citing a 1986 history of the neighborhood by Alberto Octavio Córdoba, which puts the installation in 1875, eleven years before New York.
And nobody seems sure who paid for her. El Cronista reports that Argentina’s national archive says the municipality of Buenos Aires bought it, but Belgrano wasn’t officially part of the city until 1887.
| Version | What it says | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1886 | Unveiled about 25 days before New York’s | Buenos Aires city tourism office |
| 1875 | Installed 11 years before New York’s | 1986 local history book, via El Cronista |
| October 28, 1886 | New York’s statue is dedicated | U.S. National Archives |
So “the original is in Argentina” makes a great headline, but the fair version is this: Buenos Aires has an authentic Bartholdi Liberty, and she may have been standing before New York’s. The archives haven’t settled it.
Why she matters to Latinos in the U.S.
If your familia is from Argentina, you may have walked through Barrancas de Belgrano without knowing who was standing there. A Bartholdi Liberty in a porteño barrio flips the usual picture: the icon everyone ties to New York has a sister down south, and she may be the older one.
It also proves Bartholdi’s Liberty was never only a New York thing. In Paris, the Eiffel Tower is hosting an exhibition on the statue’s history through November 12, 2026, including a section on her many replicas around the world.
If you’re in Buenos Aires this year, the plan is simple: grab a café in Belgrano, walk down to La Pampa and 11 de Septiembre, and take a selfie with the Liberty most of your friends back in the States have never heard of.
