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Kosciuszko Monument in Lafayette Park, Washington, D.C.

  

Standing across the street from the White House, the monument is the work of Polish sculptor Antoni Popiel (1865 - 1910), who is also responsible for completing, after the death of his father in law, Leonardo Marconi, his equestrian statue of Kosciuszko that stands on the Wawel Hill in Krakow.
     Popiel's design for the Lafayette Square statue gained second place in the 1907 competition for the monument, but President Theodore Roosevelt nonetheless directed it be commissioned. Popiel worked on it for two years in Chicago. Then became sick and returned to Poland where he died before the dedication of the monument had taken place on May 11, 1910.
     The grouping on the monument's west side, the one seen in the photos on the right, depicts a 'fallen Kosciuszko' directing a Polish soldier to return to the battlefield, a reference to the Battle of Maciejowice.. The east side (below on the left) depicts Kosciuszko in an American uniform freeing a bound soldier, which represents the American Revolutionary.

  
View from the west side  View from the est side


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