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For more on the the Saint Gaudens National Historical Park, see the first post in this series. This post is available as a video at https://youtu.be/mng0nfgGyJw.

In 1948, two decades after Saint Gaudens’s home had become a museum, two of the site’s outbuildings were remodeled into exhibition galleries. At their center is a courtyard in the Roman style, with an atrium and pool. This post is the first of two on sculptures in the New Gallery.

Amor Caritas, 1880-1898

At the head of the atrium pool is a classically draped, winged figure holding aloft a plaque with the words “Amor Caritas” (“Love – Charity”). Saint Gaudens’s model for the figure was Davida Clark, on whom see the end of this post. Amor Caritas won the Grand Prize at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900. Saint Gaudens sold about 20 reduced-size copies (reductions) of the work at Tiffany’s and elsewhere: hence the Metropolitan and many other museums have copies.

Saint Gaudens created a hundred or so portraits in exquisite low relief. We’ve already seen some of them in the Little Studio (here and here). This post contains portraits of some of his family and close friends.

If you’re wondering why I’m posting photos of so many of these portraits: I’ve always found it very relaxing to look at the work of people who are highly competent – be they artists, engineers, dentists, or whatever. Looking at the variety of conception and the skill of execution of portraits by Saint Gaudens is both soothing and energizing.

Bernard P.E. Saint Gaudens, 1867

This bust of his father (1816-1893) was one of Saint Gaudens’s earliest sculptures.

Charles Cotesworth Beaman, 1894

Beaman (1840-1900), a graduate of Harvard Law, became the first-ever Solicitor General of the U.S. in 1870: his task was to handle claims of losses to Confederate privateers during the Civil War. In the summer of 1885, Beaman rented an old inn to Saint Gaudens, who purchased the property in 1892.

Hettie Evarts Beaman, 1900

Hettie was wife of Charles Beaman and daughter of Senator William Maxwell Evarts.

William Evarts Beaman, 1885

“Willie” (1881-1945) was almost the same age as Saint Gaudens’s son Homer. (See this post.) Saint Gaudens sculpted this portrait as payment to Charles and Hettie Beaman for rental of the Cornish property the first summer Saint Gaudens and his family spent there.

Many portraitists are good at one type of person or another … Saint Gaudens does wonderful portraits of all ages.

William Maxwell Evarts, 1873-1874

Evarts (1818-1901) was one of Saint Gaudens’s earliest patrons. When Saint Gaudens sculpted this portrait, Evarts had already served as U.S. attorney general (1868-1869, under Andrew Johnson). The original bust was in marble; this is a 1908 bronze cast. I love the man’s cheekbones.

William Maxwell Evarts, 1887 (relief)

By the time Saint Gaudens created this relief portrait, Evarts had served as U.S. Secretary of State (1877-1881, under Rutherford B. Hayes) and was senator from New York (1885-1891).

The Schiff Children (Mortimer Leo and Frieda Fanny), 1884-1885

Jacob H. Schiff (1847-1920), an immigrant from Germany, became a prominent banker at the New York firm Kuhn, Loeb & Co., where he funded the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese War and several American railroads. He was a major donor to Jewish charities in the United States and a leader of the Jewish community from 1880 to 1920. Schiff’s estate was about $50 million ($760 million today). He was succeeded at Kuhn, Loeb by his son Mortimer Leo Schiff, who appears as an 8-year-old on this relief commissioned from Saint Gaudens in 1885. According to a label at the Saint Gaudens National Historical Site, the deerhound belonged not to the Schiffs but to Saint Gaudens. In 1905, Jacob Schiff paid for a marble replica for the Metropolitan Museum’s collection. This bronze original was donated to the Saint Gaudens National Historical Site by a descendant of the Schiffs.

Violet Sargent, 1890

Sister of the painter John Singer Sargent.

Bessie Smith-White, 1884?

Bessie was the wife of noted architect Stanford White, who often collaborated with Saint Gaudens.

Anna Lyman Gray, 1902-1904

Wife of John Chapman Gray, professor of law at Harvard. Love the line of her back.

Augusta Homer Saint Gaudens, 1907

Augusta was Saint Gaudens’s wife. This was Saint Gaudens’s last relief.

Next week: more sculptures from the New Gallery.

More

• Admission to the Saint Gaudens National Historical Park is free if you have a senior pass from the National Parks Service, which can be purchased for a one-time fee.
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