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Lot Essay
The monumental figure of Diana was originally conceived in 1886 as a weathervane for the tower of Stanford White's Madison Square Garden. A famed architect within the influential firm McKim, Mead and White, White was also the original owner of the present work, which he received as a gift from Saint-Gaudens shortly after its casting.
Saint-Gaudens’ original eighteen-foot rendition of Diana unfortunately proved oversized, unwieldy and imbalanced and, in 1892, was removed from Madison Square Garden. The figure was then installed atop the McKim, Mead and White pavilion at the Columbian Exposition, where it was later partially burned in a fire. Saint-Gaudens revised his model and, in 1894, a second version was placed on top of the Madison Square Garden tower. Thirteen feet high, it is now in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This landmark sculpture was so notorious and popular that Saint-Gaudens immediately copyrighted the model and produced an edition of hand-modeled reductions in two sizes with variations in detail, such as the base, sphere, bow and hair.
Lauretta Dimmick writes, "In 1894 Saint-Gaudens gave his wife as a Christmas gift a 'little' Diana 'to do whatever you please with it.' In January 1895 he obtained a copyright for the reduced Diana. An edition of 31-inch-high figures was cast by the Aubry Brothers foundry in New York. For this version (Brooklyn Museum of Art), Diana balances on a hemisphere and holds an arrow and a strung bow that is heavier than in subsequent versions. A 21-inch figure, gracefully poised on a sphere upon a two-tiered base, was cast as early as 1894 at the Gruet foundry in Paris....A third variation, also a 21-inch figure, was produced when Saint-Gaudens was in Paris in 1899. For this version, he remodeled the hair and the bow and altered the base so that the sphere rests on a tripod decorated with winged griffins, scrollwork, and rosettes." (American Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 1, New York, 1999, p. 309) The present work is the third variation of Diana, cast circa 1899.
Diana is one of Saint-Gaudens' most celebrated models and exhibits all of the hallmarks of the sculptor's strongest forms. The only model of a female nude that the artist ever created, Diana represents Saint-Gaudens’ innovative approach to a classical subject, which garnered him distinction as a leader of nineteenth-century American sculpture.
Saint-Gaudens’ original eighteen-foot rendition of Diana unfortunately proved oversized, unwieldy and imbalanced and, in 1892, was removed from Madison Square Garden. The figure was then installed atop the McKim, Mead and White pavilion at the Columbian Exposition, where it was later partially burned in a fire. Saint-Gaudens revised his model and, in 1894, a second version was placed on top of the Madison Square Garden tower. Thirteen feet high, it is now in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This landmark sculpture was so notorious and popular that Saint-Gaudens immediately copyrighted the model and produced an edition of hand-modeled reductions in two sizes with variations in detail, such as the base, sphere, bow and hair.
Lauretta Dimmick writes, "In 1894 Saint-Gaudens gave his wife as a Christmas gift a 'little' Diana 'to do whatever you please with it.' In January 1895 he obtained a copyright for the reduced Diana. An edition of 31-inch-high figures was cast by the Aubry Brothers foundry in New York. For this version (Brooklyn Museum of Art), Diana balances on a hemisphere and holds an arrow and a strung bow that is heavier than in subsequent versions. A 21-inch figure, gracefully poised on a sphere upon a two-tiered base, was cast as early as 1894 at the Gruet foundry in Paris....A third variation, also a 21-inch figure, was produced when Saint-Gaudens was in Paris in 1899. For this version, he remodeled the hair and the bow and altered the base so that the sphere rests on a tripod decorated with winged griffins, scrollwork, and rosettes." (American Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 1, New York, 1999, p. 309) The present work is the third variation of Diana, cast circa 1899.
Diana is one of Saint-Gaudens' most celebrated models and exhibits all of the hallmarks of the sculptor's strongest forms. The only model of a female nude that the artist ever created, Diana represents Saint-Gaudens’ innovative approach to a classical subject, which garnered him distinction as a leader of nineteenth-century American sculpture.