The Beautiful Tragedy of Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Precious metals and artistry are not often considered in the same breath with each other. However, that union is exactly what happened within the life of Augustus Saint-Gaudens.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848 – 1907) was one of the most renowned sculptors of his time. The Dublin-born artist was the son of a French father and an Irish mother, but spent much of his life in the US.

He has had a profound impact on America’s journey with coinage and precious metals. His work is still used on our coins today.

Unfortunately, he never lived to see the final results of his most lasting work. So, this page is both a commemoration of his life and an elegy to his legacy.

Early life (1848 – 1870)

Saint-Gaudens was born in August 1848 to Bernard Saint-Gaudens, a French shoemaker, and Mary McGuinness, who hailed from Ireland proper. Shortly after his birth, the family emigrated to New York City, where he spent his formative years.

His father’s French heritage played a major role in his early days, as he spent much of his teen years apprenticing for various New York-based French cameo artists and sculptors. Building on that experience, he then moved to France to study, and became one of the first Americans to study sculpture at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, the pinnacle of art education in the country.

Working years (1870 – 1900)

The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 drove Saint-Gaudens to relocate from Paris to Rome. There, he began his career in earnest, beginning with his first full-size sculpture, Hiawatha.

Saint-Gaudens supported himself during this period both with his sculptures and his cameos, the latter of which were small relief carvings custom made for wealthy patrons, including many US expatriates living in Rome.

Saint-Gaudens’ big break came in 1876 when he received a commission for a memorial statue to honor Admiral David Farragut, the American naval hero who had passed away in 1970. The statue, which remains on display in New York City’s Madison Square Park to this day, was a rousing success for Saint-Gaudens’ reputation and led to his receipt of numerous other commissions.

Those commissions included works for the homes of prominent New Yorkers Cornelius Vanderbilt II and Henry Villard. He also created several funerary monuments and dedicated statues in locations like Chicago, Boston, and Springfield, Massachusetts that remain in place today.

Notably, he created the memorial to Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the most prominent African-American regiment to fight in the Civil War. The memorial itself is depicted during the closing credits of the movie Glory, a biopic of Gould and the 54th.

Last years (1900 – 1907)

Sadly, Saint-Gaudens was diagnosed with cancer in 1900, only three years after he completed his work on the Gould Memorial. Though he was only 52 at the time, it spelled the beginning of the end of his life.

He subsequently moved to Cornish, New Hampshire, where he would stay for the rest of his life. There, he helped to found the Cornish Colony, an artists’ commune and refuge. He named his home Aspet to honor his father, Bernard, as Aspet was Bernard’s hometown in the French province of Gascony.

Although the Gould Memorial is likely Saint-Gaudens’ masterpiece, his most lasting contribution came in 1905. In that year, he was charged – by President Theodore Roosevelt, no less – with creating a new design for the Double Eagle, a $20 coin that circulated in the USA from 1849 to 1933.

It took Saint-Gaudens the rest of his life to finish the design due to some difficulties with his high relief concept and his declining health status. Though he lived to submit his designs to the US Mint, he never lived to see them approved or to see them brought to life.

The Double Eagle and the Gold Eagle

What Saint-Gaudens created as his final work became one of the most celebrated works of art ever to adorn an American coin.

His obverse featured a portrait of Lady Liberty facing forward, with her right hand thrust in front of her, holding a torch to symbolize enlightenment. In her left hand, she carries an olive branch, a well-known sign of peace. The image is encircled by 46 stars, representing the 46 states in the union in 1907 (it was amended in 1912 to include the admissions of Arizona and New Mexico).

On the reverse of the design, Saint-Gaudens depicted a soaring bald eagle, flying high over the rays of a sunrise. The familiar motto e pluribus unum was placed on the edge of the coin to complete the design.

The Saint-Gaudens double eagle, as it came to be known, circulated until 1933, though sparingly. Its high face value, particularly in light of the value of a dollar in the early 20th century, made it too large for most minor transactions. However, the pressures of the Great Depression and FDR’s new confiscatory policy on gold led to the end of the double eagle as a common coin.

Most of the early eagles were seized by the Mint and melted down. Thus, any surviving members of this group are extremely valuable, with some specimens valued in the tens of millions.

However, the US Mint never forgot the beauty or acclaim associated with Saint-Gaudens’ obverse design. So, when it sought to produce the country’s first bullion coin, it adapted his design for part of the task.

The American Gold Eagle is the older and more revered of the two bullion coins produced by the US Mint each year. On its obverse, you can once again see Lady Liberty, standing resolute and forward.

Thus, the work of Augustus Saint-Gardens continues to be relevant to the present day, more than 100 years after his death at age 59. Sadly, however, he never knew how indelible his mark would be on American currency.