Augustus Saint-Gaudens (American, born Ireland, 1848–1907)
Bust from the Adams Memorial
INV-1911
Augustus Saint-Gaudens (American, born Ireland, 1848–1907)Modeled 1892–93, cast 1912
Bust from the Adams Memorial
Augustus Saint-Gaudens (American, born Ireland, 1848–1907) →Realismbust/headsculpture
Date
Modeled 1892–93, cast 1912
Medium
Bronze
Dimensions
51.4 × 30.5 × 26.7 (20 1/4 × 12 × 10 1/2 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Bequest of Brooks McCormick
This bust comes from the upper portion of Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s 1886–91 full-figure tomb monument for Marian Hooper Adams, the wife of historian and philosopher Henry Adams, in Washington’s Rock Creek Cemetery. Because Marian’s death was a suicide and the couple was fascinated by Asian cultures, Henry asked Saint-Gaudens to avoid Christian symbolism and instead evoke the “contemplative compassion derived from Buddhist philosophy.” When Chicago architect Daniel Burnham visited Saint-Gaudens in 1892, he saw a plaster cast of the figure’s head and was enthralled by its mysterious yet meditative quality. In 1893, perhaps in celebration of Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition, Saint-Gaudens gave the bust to Burnham, who later had four bronzes cast from it.
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