Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Ellen Emmet Rand

1905 · Oil on canvas · The American Wing

Rand studied at the Art Students League in New York with painters Kenyon Cox and William Merritt Chase. She established a studio in New York in 1900 and painted numerous portraits of artists, writers, and statesmen. Her sedate half-length portrait of the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, rendered in a monochromatic palette of dark brown hues, depicts the aging sculptor in profile. Based on sittings from life, he is seated in a contemplative pose, holding his glasses in his left hand and gripping the arm of his chair. The portrait was regarded as such an accurate likeness by Saint-Gaudens and his friends and family that in 1906 architect Charles McKim initiated a campaign to acquire it for the Metropolitan. It was included in Saint-Gaudens’s memorial exhibition held at the Metropolitan in spring 1908, and purchased for the collection soon thereafter.

Artist

Ellen Emmet Rand

Date

1905

Medium

Oil on canvas

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Rogers Fund, 1908