Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Rand studied at the Art Students League in New York with painters Kenyon Cox and William Merritt Chase. She established a studio in New York in 1900 and painted numerous portraits of artists, writers, and statesmen. Her sedate half-length portrait of the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, rendered in a monochromatic palette of dark brown hues, depicts the aging sculptor in profile. Based on sittings from life, he is seated in a contemplative pose, holding his glasses in his left hand and gripping the arm of his chair. The portrait was regarded as such an accurate likeness by Saint-Gaudens and his friends and family that in 1906 architect Charles McKim initiated a campaign to acquire it for the Metropolitan. It was included in Saint-Gaudens’s memorial exhibition held at the Metropolitan in spring 1908, and purchased for the collection soon thereafter.
Artwork Details
- Title: Augustus Saint-Gaudens
- Artist: Ellen Emmet Rand (American, San Francisco, California 1875–1941 Salisbury, Connecticut)
- Date: 1905
- Culture: American
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 38 3/4 × 29 3/4 in. (98.4 × 75.6 cm)
- Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1908
- Object Number: 08.129
- Curatorial Department: The American Wing
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John Flanagan
Kunst Foundry
1905–24, cast 1924
Augustus Saint-Gaudens
1878
Kenyon Cox
1887, replica 1908
Ellen Emmet Rand
1914
Ellen Emmet Rand
1934
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