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SAINT-GAUDENS, Augustus

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

Robert Louis Stevenson

MEDOR 1435

1887

Bronze relief, black patina

H: 0, 164 m.; W: 0, 338 m.

Paris, Musée d'Orsay

Inscription

To the left of the figure: three stanzas of a poem:
YOUTH NOW FLEES ON FEATHERED FOOT / FAINT AND FAINTER SOUNDS THE FLUTE / RARER SONGS OF GOD AND STILL / SOMEWHERE ON THE SUNNY HILL / OR ALONG THE WINDING STREAM / THROUGH THE WILLOWS FLITS A DREAM / FLITS BUT SHOWS A SMILING FACE / FLEES BUT WITH SO QUAINT A GRACE / NONE CAN CHOOSE TO STAY AT HOME / ALL MUST FOLLOW ALL MUST ROAM /

THIS IS UNBORN BEAUTY SHE / NOW IN AIR FLOATS HIGH AND FREE / TAKES THE SUN AND BREAKS THE BLUE / LATE WITH STOOPING PINION FLEW / RACING HEDGEROW TREES AND WET / HER WING IN SILVER STREAMS AND SET / SHINING FOOT ON TEMPLE ROOF / NOW AGAIN SHE FLIES ALOOF / COASTING MOUNTAIN CLOUDS AND KISSED / BY THE EVENING'S AMETHYST /

IN WET WOOD AND MIRY LANE / STILL WE PANT AND POUND IN VAIN / STILL WITH LEADEN FOOT WE CHASE / WANING PINION FAINTING FACE / STILL WITH GREY HAIR WE STUMBLE ON / TILL BEHOLD THE VISION GONE / WHERE HATH FLEETING BEAUTY LED / TO THE DOORWAY OF THE DEAD / LIFE IS OVER LIFE WAS GAY / WE HAVE GONE THE PRIMROSE WAY

To the right of the figure: TO ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON / FROM HIS FRIEND AUGUSTUS / SAINT -GAUDENS NEW YORK / SEPTEMBER MDCCC / L XXXVII

Medals

From 1865 to 1900

Historical

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

Comment

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894) was a Scottish poet and writer. He posed for this portrait in New York in Septembr of 1887.

Related works

Other casts exist in collections including: the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts; the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; and the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, Cornish, New Hampshire.

Bibliography

Bond, pp. 76-78;

Hind, 1887;

Hollingsworth;

Greenthal, pp. 119-22;

Wilkinson, pp. 173-83, 370, 397-98;

S. Colvin, ed., The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, London, 1900, vol. 2, pp. 289-90, 305-06, 340;

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

C. Roger Marx, "The Medallists' Art as Seen at the Paris Exhibition, " The Studio, vol. 22, May 1901, p. 230;

Will C. Low, A Chronicle of Friendship, New York, 1908;

L. Forrer, Biographical Dictionary of Medallists, vol. II, London 1909, p. 255 (215?), vol. V, London, p. 300;

H. Saint-Gaudens, Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Century Co., New York, 1913, vol. I, pp. 373-88;

André Dezarrois, "Le Musée des écoles étrangères, " Le Revue de l'Art ancien et moderne, 1926, vol. 49, p. 160-172, p. 168;

John H. Dryfhout, "Robert Louis Stevenson, " in Metamorphoses in Nineteenth-Century Sculpture, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, 1975, pp. 187-217;

John H. Dryfhout, The Work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens (catalogue raisonné) Hanover and London, University Press of New England, 1982, pp. 173-74, 261-63;

Marble and Bronze: 100 Years of American Sculpture 1840-1940, Washington, D.C., Adams Davidson Galleries, 1984, n° 10;

Kathryn Greenthal, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Master Sculptor, New York,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Boston, G.R. Hall & Co., 1986, pp. 89-90, 120-23, 174;

Kathryn Greenthal, Paula M. Kozol, Jan Seidler Ramirez, American Figurative Sculpture, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1986, pp. 242-44;

Barbara A. Baxter, The Beaux-Arts Medal in America, the American Numismatic Society, New York, 1986 (26 septembre 1986 - 16 avril 1987), p. 30-31.

Gilbert Sigaux, "Vie de R. L. Stevenson, " dans Robert Louis Stevenson, L'ile au trésor, Paris, Garnier-Flammarion, 1990, pp. 313-329;

Fiona Pearson, ed., Virtue and Vision: Sculpture and Scotland 1540-1990, National Gallery of Scotland, 1991, p. 169;

Paula Freedman, American Sculpture at Yale University, 1992, pp. 155-56;

Augustus Saint-Gaudens 1848-1907: Un maître de la sculpture américaine, Paris, Editions Somogy, 1999, pp. 163-64.