Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907)
Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907)

Amor Caritas

Details
Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907)
Amor Caritas
inscribed '•AMOR•CARITAS•' (upper center)--inscribed 'AVGVSTVS/SAINT GAVDENS/MDCCCXCVIII' (lower left pilaster)--stamped 'COPYRIGHT BY A SAINT-GAUDENS MDCCCXCVIII' (lower right)
gilt bronze relief
bronze, 40 x 17½ in. (101.6 x 44.5 cm.); overall, 50¼ x 33 in. (127.6 x 83.8 cm.)
Modeled in 1898.
Provenance
The artist.
Spencer Trask, New York, acquired from the above, by 1900.
The Corporation of Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, New York.
[With]Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., New York, 2011.
Acquired by the present owner from the above.
Literature
A.T.E. Gardner, American Sculpture, New York, 1965, p. 49.
J.H. Dryfhout, The Work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1982, pp. 14-15, 34, 136, 154, 197, 234-35, 250, 310, 315, no. 169, other examples illustrated.
K. Greenthal, Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Master Sculptor, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1985, pp. 29, 107-09, 175, pl. xiv, fig. 99, the larger size illustrated.
B. Wilkinson, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, American Sculpture: From the Collection of the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, exhibition catalogue, Washington, D.C., 1992, pp. IV, VII, no. 3, another example referenced.
H.J. Duffy, J.H. Dryfhout, Augustus Saint-Gaudens: American Sculptor of the Gilded Age, exhibition catalogue, Washington, D.C., 2003, pp. 29-30, no. 5, plaster examples illustrated.

Lot Essay

The original Amor Caritas bronze relief (8 x 4 ft.) is in the collection of the Musée de Louvre, Paris. Augustus Saint-Gaudens produced approximately thirty bronze reductions of the model, and more than half of the bronzes in the scale of the present work are now in American public collections, including The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; The Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio; the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio; the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan; the University of Miami Library, Miami, Florida; the R.W. Norton Gallery, Shreveport, Louisiana; Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island; the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, Cornish, New Hampshire; and the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington. The present reduction is highly unusual in that it is gilded; there are only three other known gilded examples, two of which are in the collections of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and the Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, Missouri. Additionally, in 1918, some years after the sculptor’s death, another bronze cast in the original large scale was produced for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

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