page_title: Fountain of the Centaurs
section_title: Signing of the Treaty
hierarchical_section_title: Fountain of the Centaurs / Signing of the Treaty
caption_attribution_description: English: US postage stamp: 3-cent en:Louisiana Purchase maroon commemorative stamp issued April 30, 1953. The stamp is a reproduction of a sculptured plaque by Karl Bitter, depicting James Monroe, en:Robert R. Livingston, and en:Francois Barbe Marbois, signing the Louisiana Transfer at Paris in 1803.
context_page_description: Fountain of the Centaurs is a fountain located on the grounds of the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City, Missouri, north of the Capitol building.
context_section_description: After being named director of sculpture for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904 Bitter contributed several pieces to the array of sculpture at the event.  Since it was all made of staff and thus perusable and “swept into the dust bins of time,” only his relief showing the signing of the Louisiana Purchase by Robert R. Livingston, James Monroe and “the amiable” François Barbé-Marbois was saved.  Following the close of the fair Bitter was employed to make “improvements in a score of delicate details” of the work and it was cast in bronze and placed in the Jefferson Memorial in St. Louis.  Bitter was comfortable with the proposed changes and made them, “without any special thumbscrew to my conscience”  A decade later the Missouri Capitol Decoration Committee received permission from Bitter's widow to make another bronze casting of the work and place it in Jefferson City.
  The relief is used on a US Postal stamp commemorating the 150th anniversary of the event.
caption: U.S. postage stamp (c. 1953) commemorating the Louisiana Purchase
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