Augustus Saint-Gaudens by Kenyon Cox in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 2020

Augustus Saint-Gaudens
1887, replica 1908


Object Details

Title: Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Artist: Kenyon Cox (American, Warren, Ohio 1856–1919 New York)

Date: 1887, replica 1908

Culture: American

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 33 1/2 x 47 1/8 in. (85.1 x 119.7 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Gift of friends of the artist, through August F. Jaccaci, 1908

Accession Number: 08.130


Cox and Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907) met in Paris in the 1870s and exchanged portraits in 1887: an oil painting for a bronze relief. The original canvas was lost in Saint-Gaudens’s 1904 studio fire, so Cox created this replica in time for the Metropolitan Museum’s 1908 memorial exhibition of the sculptor’s work. Saint-Gaudens is shown in his New York studio, modeling in clay a portrait relief of the artist William Merritt Chase. A bronze likeness of the sculptor’s son, Homer, hangs on the wall (the Museum owns a marble replica; 05.15.2). Cox cleverly echoed his friend’s portrait reliefs by showing him in profile.


Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/10557