The Children of Prescott Hall Butler

Augustus Saint-Gaudens American
 Carved by Piccirilli Brothers Marble Carving Studio

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 764

Saint-Gaudens modeled this portrait of Charles Stewart Butler (1876–1954) and Lawrence Smith Butler (1875–1954) as a surprise gift from the architect Stanford White to the boys’ father, Prescott Hall Butler, a New York lawyer. The brothers are dressed in Scottish Highland attire: jackets and pleated kilts, with sporrans hanging from their waists. The endless ribbon at the upper left is inscribed twice with a line from the first book of Virgil’s Aeneid: "DABIT DEVS HIS QVOQVE FINEM" (The god will bring an end to this, too). This carving was one of three portraits of children commissioned by the Metropolitan from Saint-Gaudens in 1905.

The Children of Prescott Hall Butler, Augustus Saint-Gaudens (American, Dublin 1848–1907 Cornish, New Hampshire), Marble, American

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