Building America: The Wolf Family Collection

Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Head of Lincoln

Auction Closed

April 21, 08:50 PM GMT

Estimate

20,000 - 30,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Augustus Saint-Gaudens

1848 - 1907

Head of Lincoln

inscribed AVGVSTVS SAINT GAVDENS / © (on the collar); inscribed ROMAN BRONZE WORKS / N-Y- (along the base)

bronze

16½ in. (41.9 cm.) high on a 4¾ in. (12 cm.) base

Conceived in 1887; this example cast circa 1923.

We are grateful to Dr. Henry Duffy for his assistance cataloguing this lot.

Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, February 3, 1978, lot 797
Wolf Family Collection No. 0171 (acquired from the above)

American Magazine of Art, vol. 20, April 1929, p. 223

Exh. Cat., New York, Century Association, An Exhibition of Works by Augustus Saint-Gaudens on the Hundredth Anniversary of His Birth, 1948, no. 22

John H. Dryfhout, The Work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1982, fig. 124-6, p. 162, illustration of another cast

Exh. Cat., Washington, D.C., Federal Reserve Board Building, Augustus Saint-Gaudens American Sculptor: From the Collection of the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, 1992, no. 20, p. VII (as Abraham Lincoln: The Man, head)

Exh. Cat., Toulouse, France, Musée des Augustins & Blérancourt, Musée franco-américain du Château de Blérancourt, Augustus Saint-Gaudens: A Master of American Sculpture, 1999, no. 26, p. 128, illustration of another cast

Thayer Tolles, Augustus Saint-Gaudens in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009, fig. 25, p. 24, illustration of another cast

This form was first conceived as a heroic size bronze statue of a standing Abraham Lincoln to adorn Lincoln Park in Chicago, Illinois. The monument, cast by the Henry-Bonnard Bronze Company, was commissioned in 1884 and unveiled in 1887. This reduction was cast by Roman Bronze Works after the artist's death, probably in 1923. It highlights Lincoln's bent head and powerful expression.