Cornish Celebration Presentation Plaquette
1905–6
Medium
Bronze and silver
Dimensions
3 1/4 x 1 3/4 in. (8.3 x 4.5 cm)
Classification
Plaquette
Culture
American
Department
The American Wing
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Kenyon Cox, 1908
Accession Number
08.216
Tags
Art Historical Context
Augustus Saint-Gaudens one of America's foremost sculptors of the Gilded Age, created this exquisite *Cornish Celebration Presentation Pla* between 1905 and 1906. A master of Beaux-Arts realism, Saint-Gaudens was renowned for his monumental public works, like the Shaw Memorial in Boston, but he also excelled in intimate relief sculptures. This small bronze and silver plaquette, measuring just 3¼ × 1¾ inches, served as a commemorative token, likely awarded during festive gatherings at the artist's Cornish, New Hampshire colony—an idyllic artists' haven he helped establish in the 1880s. The pla...
About the Artist
Augustus Saint-Gaudens · 1848–1907
Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907) was an Irish-born American sculptor widely regarded as the greatest American sculptor of the nineteenth century. Born in Dublin to a French father and Irish mother, he was brought to New York City as an infant. He trained as a cameo cutter, studied at the Cooper Union and the National Academy of Design, and then traveled to Paris, where he studied at the École de...