Anders Zorn (Mora, 1860 - 1920, Mora)
Augustus Saint-Gaudens I, 1897
Etching on laid paper, 31 x 23.8 cm (12 3/16 x 9 3/8 in.)
The etching in black ink on light brown paper depicts a half-length portrait of artist Augustus Saint-Gaudens. He is seated with his body turned to his right, our left, and his arms resting on his lap. He is dressed in an artist's smock that falls open at the neck, showing a dark garment underneath. His deep-set eyes are staring into space, and his face appears gaunt. Saint-Gaudens has a full, dark head of scruffy-looking hair with a lock falling across his forehead. The vague background of long etched lines appears to include a pedestal to the left and a figure to its right, our left. The etching is signed in ink in the lower left corner and in pencil under its lower margin.
Short Gallery
Commentary
Painter and printmaker Anders Zorn and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens met at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 and became fast friends and colleagues. They shared similar ebullient lifestyles and patrons including Isabella Stewart Gardner. Zorn frequently visited Saint-Gaudens’s studios in both New York and Paris, and in this etching, he captured his friend at rest in his artist’s smock. Apparently unsatisfied with his rendering, Zorn inscribed the print with “a bad portrait of St. Gaudens to Mrs. Gardner” when he gave it to her in 1897.