Oil on canvas, 33 1/2 x 47 1/8 inches (85.1 x 119.7 cm),
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 1908
by Kenyon Cox

Kenyon Cox (1856-1919) and Saint-Gaudens met during the late 1870s in Paris and enjoyed a long friendship based on shared experiences and mutual respect for each other’s work. Cox became a faculty member at the Art Students League in 1884, and Saint-Gaudens taught there beginning in 1888. In 1897, Cox bought a summer home in Cornish, where Saint-Gaudens had summered since 1885, and which had become a popular retreat for artists, writers, and musicians.

Cox painted his first portrait of Saint-Gaudens in 1887. With clay and a tool in his left hand, Saint-Gaudens models a portrait relief of William Merritt Chase, fellow teacher at the Arts Students League. The original painting burned in Saint-Gaudens’ studio fire in 1904. Cox painted a replica after the sculptor’s death in August 1907.