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A collection of images of the varied workers and techniques used to maintain some of the world’s largest and most prominent statues and monuments.
May 28, 2025, 12:20 PM ET
Bettmann / Getty
National Parks Service worker James Hudson uses a cloth-wrapped pole to clean the ear of the statue at the Lincoln Memorial in 1987.
Gary Hershorn / Getty
Maintenance workers clean a statue in Central Park, in New York City, in 2016.
Anton Vaganov / Reuters
A municipal worker scrubs a statue of the Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 2023.
Kyodo / Reuters
A crew carries out the annual cleaning of the 120-meter-tall Ushiku Daibutsu Great Buddha statue in Ushiku, Japan, in 2022.
Keystone / Getty
Nelson’s Column, in London’s Trafalgar Square, gets a spring cleaning in 1987.
Brian Lawless / PA Images / Reuters
A statue of the late musician Luke Kelly in Dublin’s city center is cleaned after it had been defaced overnight in 2020.
Jens Meyer / AP
The model maker Helga Mueller works to restore a model of the Statue of Liberty, seen behind a model of the U.S. Capitol Building, at Miniwelt (Miniworld) in Lichtenstein, Germany, in 2015.
Tiziana Fabi / AFP / Getty
The restorer Eleonora Pucci cleans Michelangelo’s David using a backpack vacuum and a synthetic-fiber brush at the Galleria dell’Accademia, in Florence, Italy, in 2024.
Maxim Marmur / AP
A worker cleans the statue of the spaceflight pioneer Yuri Gagarin before Cosmonauts Day in Moscow in 2023.
Harry Todd / Fox Photos / Getty
Workmen clean the immense statue of two horses pulling a quadriga atop Wellington Arch, at London’s Hyde Park Corner, in 1939.
Edgar Su / Reuters
Cleaners spray the 37-meter-tall Merlion statue on the resort island of Sentosa, in Singapore, in 2015.
Binsar Bakkara / AP
A worker cleans a Buddha statue in preparation for Lunar New Year celebrations at Satya Buddha Temple in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia, in 2023.
About the Author
Alan Taylor is a senior editor at The Atlantic.
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