AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS (1848-1907)

Details

AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS (1848-1907)

'NIKH-EIPHNH', A Bronze Head of Victory

inscribed 'A-SAINT-GAUDENS ^.M^.C^.M^.V^.' and stamped 'COPYRIGHT MCMVII BY AUGUSTUS SAINT GAUDENS'
8in. (20.2cm.) high, on white marble base, medium brown patina

Literature

A.T.E. Gardner, American Sculpture: A Catalogue of the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Greenwich, Connecticut, 1965, p. 55
J.H. Dryfhout, The Work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Hanover, New Hamphshire, 1982, cat. no. 185, pp. 257-258

Lot Essay

The present model is the second study for the head of the figure of Victory, part of the William Tecumseh Sherman Monument located in New York City at the Grand Army Plaza, Fifth Avenue and Central Park South. Though Saint-Gaudens preferred this model, he felt that the earlier version was better suited to the monument. The profile of this later study was subsequently used for a tondo relief and for the new penny and ten-dollar coin.