An American in Paris:
Jefferson Honored on July 4

Photo by Wayne Cozart

A delegation from the University — including President John T. Casteen III and Rector Thomas F. Farrell — along with friends, students and alumni who live in Paris, Belgium, Holland and England, attended the unveiling and dedication of a statue of Thomas Jefferson in Paris on the Fourth of July. The event was the culmination of an almost 10-year effort by U.Va. alumni in Paris, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and Guy Wildenstein, an art collector and dealer based in New York and Paris. The statue is a gift to the city of Paris from the Florence Gould Foundation, which supports French/American exchange and friendship, and Alec and Guy Wildenstein in memory of their father Daniel Wildenstein, on the occasion of the 180th anniversary of Jefferson’s death.

The statue, the only public statue of Jefferson in Paris, was installed on the Left bank of the Seine, not far from where Jefferson lived when he was minister to France. It is catty-cornered from the Palace of the Legion of Honor, which inspired Jefferson’s design for Monticello.