PARIS — They took three years to blossom, but Jeff Koons’s tulips are finally in full bloom.

A t a ceremony in Paris on Friday, the American artist dedicated a new sculpture to friendship between France and the United States, and to the victims of recent terrorist attacks in the city and across the European country. The ceremony drew a three-year saga to a close, in which French cultural figures quarreled about the monument’s location and significance, and questioned Mr. Koons’s motives in creating it.

At the inauguration ceremony, Mr. Koons said, “The sculpture ‘Bouquet of Tulips’ was created as a symbol of remembrance, optimism and healing.”

Made of bronze, aluminum and stainless steel, “Bouquet of Tulips” is 41 feet tall. An outstretched hand holds 11 colorful tulips and evokes the hand of the Statue of Liberty holding her torch. Mr . Koons said it also echoed Pablo Picasso’s “Bouquet of Peace,” a 1958 lithograph.

Mr. Koons announced the gift of a sculpture to the people of Paris in November 2016, months after Jane D. Hartley, the United States ambassador to France at the time, had asked him to create a tribute to the victims of the terrorist attacks in France in 2015 and 2016.