On the eve of the First World War a statue of Joan of Arc was raised in New York City. The cast-bronze figure was placed atop a pedestal fitted with stones recently excavated from the castle in which Joan had been imprisoned and led to the stake in 1431. The statue and its symbolic pedestal were the inspiration of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, led by George Frederick Kunz, a gemologist with Tiffany and Company.
In 1909, Kunz chartered a statue committee to commemorate the upcoming 500th anniversary of Joan’s birth in 1412. The committee chose the young sculptor Anna Vaughn Hyatt to create the figure of an armor-clad Joan astride a horse.
In 1912, learning that the dungeon was being excavated to make way for a modern building in Rouen, France, Kunz and the statue committee purchased the lot of 229 blocks, some 36,000 pounds of stone. The stones left Rouen for New York in June 1914. Today they form the decorative elements of the pedestal of the statue at Riverside Drive and 93rd Street.
Gift of the Joan of Arc Statue Committee through George F. Kunz, 1915
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