Mrs. Stanford White (Bessie Springs Smith)
1884, carved by 1888
Medium
Marble
Dimensions
25 x 12 in., (63.5 x 30.5 cm)
Classification
Sculpture
Culture
American
Department
The American Wing
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Erving Wolf Foundation, in memory of Diane R. Wolf, 1976
Accession Number
1976.388
Tags
Art Historical Context
Behold the elegant marble bust of *Mrs. Stanford White (essie Springs Smith)*, by Augustus Saint-Gaud between 1884 and 1888. Saint-Gaudens, a figure in American sculpture during the Gilded Age, was renowned for his Beaux-Arts style, blending classical realism with subtle emotional depth. This intimate portrait captures the refined beauty of Bessie Springs Smith wife of the celebrated architect Stanford White, in a lifesize scale of 25 x 12 inches (63.5 x 30.5 cm). Carved from pristine marble—a medium Saint-Gaudens mastered for its luminous translucency and enduring symbolism of virtue—this bu...
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...