Search

SAINT-GAUDENS, Augustus

Dublin, Ireland, 1848 - Cornish, New Hampshire, 1907
Came to the United States as a child.

"Novy" (Louis P. Clark)

MEDOR 1428 1

1892

Bronze medal, brown patina

D: 0, 058 m.

Paris, Musée d'Orsay

Inscription

In the field to the left: NOVY
In the field to the right: M / DCCCXC / II

Medals

From 1865 to 1900

Historical

Purchased from the artist for the Musée du Luxembourg, 1899.

Comment

"Novy" was the nickname of Louis P. Clark (1889-?), the illegitimate son of the artist and Davida Johnson Clark, his model. Born in Sweden in 1861, her real name was Albertina Lundgren. She modelled for many of Saint-Gaudens' most famous sculptures, including Diana, Amor Caritas, and the figure of Victory on the Sherman Monument.

Related works

Other examples: there is a large plaster version at the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, New Hampshire. There are at least four reductions in bronze: two in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay and two in private collections in the United States.

Bibliography

Catalogue des oeuvres de peinture, sculpture, dessin, gravure, architecture et objets d'art exposés au Champ de Mars le 1er mars 1898; n° 159;

Roger Marx, Les Médailleurs Modernes à l'Exposition Universelle de 1900, Paris, 1901, repr. pl. 28;

John H. Dryfhout, The Work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens (catalogue raisonné) Hanover and London, University Press of New England, 1982, pp. 197-98;

Kathryn Greenthal, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Master Sculptor, New York,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Boston, G.R. Hall & Co., 1986, pp. 110-11;

Augustus Saint-Gaudens 1848-1907: Un maître de la sculpture américaine, Paris, Editions Somogy, 1999, pp. 190-91.

WILKINSON pp. 138-144.