Samuel Gray Ward (1817 - 1907) was a financier and prominent New York-based patron of the arts. He served as a founding member of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1869 and ultimately became the museum’s treasurer. Conceived in 1881, Portrait Relief of Samuel Gray Ward is an extremely rare relief by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. The Metropolitan Museum of Art owns the only other known example of its kind, and two years after it was completed in 1883 the sculptor called it one of the best and lowest reliefs he ever made (John Dryfhout, The Work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1982, p. 120).

Many of the artist’s earlier relief portraits in the 1870s were gifts and “tokens of friendship;” the present work, however, is one of the earliest commissioned portraits that Saint-Gaudens produced (Exh. Cat., Toulouse, France, Musée des Augustins & Blérancourt, France, Musée franco-américain du Château de Blérancourt, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 1999, p. 169). Saint-Gaudens and Ward met through mutual acquaintances Charles McKim and Stanford White. Their firm, McKim, Meade & White designed Ward’s house in Lenox, Massachusetts in 1880 (ibid). In May of 1881, as the inscription denotes, Saint-Gaudens executed Portrait Relief of Samuel Gray Ward. The vertical relief depicts Ward in profile, seated facing right. The attention to detail shown to his bow tie, facial hair and long coat are remarkable. The work was exhibited at the Society of American Artists in 1882 shortly after its completion. Saint-Gaudens remodeled the relief in 1883 to create a circular version, which is now unlocated.