The Puritan
Modeled 1883–86, cast after 1899
Medium
Bronze
Dimensions
77.5 × 50.8 × 33 cm (30 1/2 × 20 × 13 in.)
Classification
sculpture
Department
Arts of the Americas
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
191185
Art Historical Context
Augustus Saint-Gaudens one of America's foremost sculptors of the late th century, crafted *The Puritan* between 1883 and 1886, with bronze casts produced after 1899. This intimate bronze sculpture, standing about 30 inches tall, captures a stern, resolute figure emblematic of early colonial New England values—piety, moral fortitude, and unyielding determination. Housed in the Art Institute of Chicago's Arts the Americas department, it Saint-Gaudens' mastery Beaux-Arts realism, classical training from Paris with a distinctly American sensibility. Modeled during the Gilded Age, when fascinatio...
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...