Detail of memorial
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Saint-Gaudens received the commission for a monument to Shaw
in 1884. His first sketches for an equestrian statue were rejected by the Shaw
family as a treatment too grand for a colonel. He then decided to depict Shaw with his men;
these soldiers assumed a greater importance as work on the monument
progressed. The first finished model of the Shaw was completed in
1896; the Boston monument is the second version, unveiled in Boston on May 21, 1897. Charles
F. McKim designed the architectural elements as well as the setting
for the monument.
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Saint-Gaudens (bottom right) with early
plaster model |
Saint-Gaudens continued to work on the Shaw, exhibiting reworked
plaster versions in Paris in 1898 and in 1900. It was not until the fourth
version, exhibited at the Universal Exposition in 1900, that Saint-Gaudens
was fully satisfied with the result. This final plaster version was
on display in Cornish until 1996, when the Saint-Gaudens
Memorial Trustees, together with the National Park Service, raised funds
to cast the relief in bronze. With the bronze on display at the Saint-Gaudens National
Historic Site, the original plaster cast is on long-term loan to the
National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
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