Cornish Celebration Presentation Plaque
1905–6; cast ca. 1913
Medium
Bronze, gilt
Dimensions
32 1/2 × 18 7/8 in. (82.6 × 48 cm)
Classification
Plaque
Culture
American
Department
The American Wing
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Marguerite and Frank A. Cosgrove Jr. Fund, 2017
Accession Number
2017.155
Tags
Art Historical Context
Behold the *Cornish Celebration Presentation Plaque* (1905–6; cast ca. 1913), a masterful gilt bronze relief by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, one of foremost sculptors of the Gilded Age. Saint-Gaudens, celebrated his Beaux-Arts monuments like the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, crafted this plaque amid the vibrant artists' colony he helped establish in Cornish, New Hampshire. The work commemorates one of the colony's famed annual "Celebrations"—festive pageants blending music, dance, and classical tableaux that drew luminaries to the idyllic landscape. Measuring an impressive 32½ × 18⅞ inches, the plaq...
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...