Louisiana Purchase Bas Relief

This plaster bas relief sculpture is the artist's model for a larger version exhibited at the 1904 World's Fair in Chicago, Illinois. The fair was dubbed the "Louisiana Purchase Exposition" to commemorate the centennial of the treaty by which the United States acquired the Louisiana Territory from France. Austrian-American sculptor Karl Bitter depicted James Monroe (left), fellow American diplomat Robert Livingston (seated), and French treasurer Francis Barbe-Marbois (right) signing the Louisiana Purchase treaty in 1803. The full-size sculpture was demolished after the World's Fair, but a bronze version was erected at the Missouri state capitol in Jefferson City in 1927.