Progress of the State is the title of a group of sculptural figures that sits above the south portico, at the main entrance to the Minnesota State Capitol in Saint Paul, the state capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The allegorical statuary group representing civilization is in an arrangement known as a quadriga, consisting of a chariot pulled by four horses. Three human figures, two women and a man, are included. The sculpture, made by Daniel Chester French and Edward Clark Potter, was based on their earlier Columbus Quadriga statuary, at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. It was completed and raised to the roof of the capitol in 1906. The underlying armature is steel covered in copper. The exterior copper surface is gilded in 23 karat gold leaf and requires re-gilding approximately every 20 years. Design The quadriga arrangement is a style of statue reproducing ancient Greek and Roman four-horse chariots. In the Minnesota quadriga the male charioteer holds aloft a variation of a Roman Legion standard inscribed with the state name MINNESOTA. In his design for the Capitol, architect Cass Gilbert left out the classical triangular pediment favored in the Neoclassical and Beaux-Arts government architecture of the time and instead in its place installed a quadriga monument at the base of the dome. The quadriga is unusual in that it sits atop a building's portico, rather than upon a triumphal arch like most others. The inspiration for the Minnesota quadriga was the Columbus Quadriga, a statue depicting Christopher Columbus standing in a four horse chariot guided by two maidens carrying staffs of victory that Daniel Chester French and Edward Clark Potter had modeled for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. Potter was a specialist in equestrian and other animal sculptures who teamed up with French to create the four horses in the monument. Gilbert saw this quadriga group at and made plans to have artists adapt it for Minnesota. The Board had two options for how French could render the group. By French's estimates in 1896 he could cast it in bronze for $49,500 or make it from hammered copper for $36,000. The 1903 state appropriation set aside $35,000 for the group "to be executed in copper." French continued to hope to cast the Quadriga in bronze, as late as spring of 1906, but Gilbert communicated the Board's refusal: "However much they would