Augustus Saint-Gaudens 1848 - 1907

Private collection, New England
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1961

Lorado Taft, The History of American Sculpture, New York, 1903, p. 296, illustration of another example p. 289
John H. Dryfhout, The Work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1982, pp. 14-15, 34, 136, 154, 197, 234-5, 250, 310, 315, illustration of another example p. 235
Wayne Craven, Sculpture in America, New York, 1984 ed., p. 392
Katherine Greenthal, Augustus Saint Gaudens: Master Sculptor, New York, 1985, pp. 107-9, illustration of another example in color p. 29, illustration of another example p. 109
Burke Wilkinson, Uncommon Clay: The Life and Work of Augustus Saint Gaudens, Orlando, Florida, 1985, p. 151
Anne Pingeot, Antoinette Le Normand-Roumain and Laure de Margerie, Musée d'Orsay: Catalogue Sommaire Illustré des Sculpteurs, Paris, 1986, RF 1405, p. 242
John H. Dryfhout, et al., Augustus Saint Gaudens 1848-1907: A Master of American Sculpture, Paris, 1999, pp. 83-86, 96, illustration of another example in color p. 109
Thayer Tolles, ed., American Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Volume I, New York, 1999, pp. 313-15, illustration of another example in color p. 314
David Finn, Sculpture at the Corcoran: Photographs by David Finn, New York, 2004, pp. 86-90, illustrations of another example pp. 86-90
Thayer Tolles, Augustus Saint Gaudens in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2009, pp. 40-45, illustration of another example in color p. 43

Good condition, very sharply detailed. This work has been recently re-patinated.
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Augustus Saint-Gaudens first exhibited the life-size plaster of Amor Caritas to great fanfare at the Paris Salon of 1898.  It was cast in bronze upon commission from the French Government soon after the show, and represents the culmination of the sculptor's address of the frontal classical female figure.  In response to the work's enthusiastic reception, Saint-Gaudens cast approximately twenty forty-inch bronze reductions, including the present work.  Symbolizing love and charity, the figure is clothed in loose-fitting drapery slightly gathered at the waist by a belt of passion flowers which matches the crown of flowers in her hair.  The pose, dress and demeanor of Saint-Gaudens' allegorical female had been developed and refined in several different commissions over the years preceding the Paris Salon. The central angel of the Morgan Tomb in Hartford, Connecticut (1879-1880) bears the same serene facial expression, general pose and flowing dress as the Amor Caritas.  When Saint-Gaudens created caryatids for the mantelpiece of Cornelius Vanderbilt's New York City residence (1881-1883), he modified the positioning of the arms and refined the drapery. The angel created for the Ann Maria Smith Tomb in Newport, Rhode Island (1887) is virtually identical save minor details in the wings and garment.  Saint-Gaudens believed his female form had reached near perfection in Amor Caritas, and in 1902, he reproduced the angel for the Maria Mitchell Memorial in Philadelphia, modifying only the tablet and surrounding architectural structure.

Saint-Gaudens also exhibited Amor Caritas at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900, where he served on the American committee to oversee sculpture installation, and was awarded the Grand Prize for his participation in the event.  This exhibition afforded a much broader international audience for Saint-Gaudens' sculptures and reliefs, attracting around fifty million visitors.  The two years of exhibitions in France marked a milestone in Saint-Gaudens' career, securing him both international artistic recognition (he became a correspondent of the Institut de France, the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and was awarded the Chevalier de la legion d'Honneur) and personal validation: "This Paris experience...as far as my art goes, has been a great thing for me... A great self-confidence has come over me, and a tremendous desire and will to achieve high things" (Augustus Saint-Gaudens in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009, p. 45).

A heroically-sized bronze replica of Amor Caritas, dated 1880-1898, is in the collection of the Saint-Gaudens National Historical Site in New Hampshire, and a gilt-bronze example, cast posthumously in 1918 for New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, remains in their permanent collection.  The majority of the twenty reductions are in public collections, including the Brooklyn Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Art, the Saint Louis Art Museum, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.  The reductions were originally marketed by Tiffany & Co. in New York and by Doll & Richards in Boston.