The Lion of Belfort is a monumental sculpture carved in red sandstone by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, who also made the Statue of Liberty. It was completed in 1880 on the cliff below Belfort castle in France. It honors the French resistance in the 103-day Siege of Belfort, from December 1870 to February 1871.
The lion is 72 feet (22 meters) long and 36 feet (11 meters) high. Bartholdi sculpted the blocks individually and assembled them on site. He first faced the lion east, toward Prussia. At the government's request for a calmer expression he turned it west and added an arrow under its paw, pointing back to the German border.
Smaller versions stand in Place Denfert-Rochereau in Paris, in bronze, and in Dorchester Square in Montreal, in stone.
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