Augustus Saint-Gaudens (American, born Ireland, 1848–1907)
Cast by Magee Furnace Company
Chelsea, Massachusetts
Jules Bastien-Lepage
INV-6317
Augustus Saint-Gaudens (American, born Ireland, 1848–1907)
Cast by Magee Furnace Company
Chelsea, MassachusettsModeled 1880, cast 1881
Jules Bastien-Lepage
Augustus Saint-Gaudens (American, born Ireland, 1848–1907) Cast by Magee Furnace Company Chelsea, Massachusetts →Realismsculptureamerican arts
Date
Modeled 1880, cast 1881
Medium
Copper with bronze patina
Dimensions
37.2 × 27 cm (14 5/8 × 10 5/8 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of Sara Hallowell
Augustus Saint-Gaudens modeled a series of low-relief portraits of his artist friends in Paris, including this depiction of painter Jules Bastien-Lepage. The sculptor playfully featured a palette and brushes yet concealed most of the sitter’s hands—which are so important to an artist’s act of making. This shallow relief sculpture was made by the newly developed process of electrotyping. Electrically charged metals and metal alloys (here copper and bronze) adhered to a mold of the original clay sculpture at the particle level, creating a thin—yet faithful—copy. Saint-Gaudens is the earliest known American artist to invest in the technique, ordering electrotypes of two of his works from the Magee Furnace Company.
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