Object details

Object number

S27w14

Creator(s)

Augustus Saint-Gaudens (Dublin, 1848 - 1907, Cornish, New Hampshire)

Title

Medal of John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)

Date

1880

Medium

Bronze

Dimensions

6.1 cm (2 3/8 in.)

Additional Dimensions

Diameter: 6.03 cm (2 3/8 in.)

Signatures, inscriptions, and markings

Inscribed, signed and dated (obverse): MY FRIEND JOHN / SARGENT PARIS /IVLY M D C C C LXXX / FECE / A ST G (in monogram)/ BRUTTO / RITRATO

Provenance

Gift from Augustus Saint-Gaudens to Isabella Stewart Gardner on 7 November 1887.

Commentary

Isabella Stewart Gardner greatly admired the work of American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who inscribed this portrait medal to “my friend Sargent” in 1880. Saint-Gaudens also included the words “brutto ritrato” (“crude portrait”) to describe his rendering. The sculptor gave the medal to Gardner in 1887.

Bibliography

Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 249.
Susan West Day. "Two Medals by Saint-Gaudens." Fenway Court, vol. 2, no. 2 (Aug. 1968), pp. 9-16, ill. 12.
Cornelius C. Vermeule III et al. Sculpture in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston: 1977), p. 160, no. 202.
John Dryfhout. The Work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens (Hanover and London, 1982), p. 106, no. 86.
Emamanuelle Héran. Augustus Saint-Gaudens 1848-1907: Un maître de la sculpture américaine. Exh. cat. (Musée des Augustins, Toulouse, 1999), p. 159, no. 60.
Thayer Tolles. American Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 1, A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born before 1865 (New York, 1999), pp. 262-63, no. 114.
Tanya Karpiak. "The medallic secrets of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum." The Medal (Autumn 2014), pp. 17-19, fig. 7.
Elizabeth Reluga, "Commemorating Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Regiment," Inside the Collection (blog), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 16 April 2020, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/commemorating-robert-gould-shaw-54th-massachusetts-regiment

Gallery

Long Gallery

Case

Sargent / Whistler Case

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