Augustus St. Gaudens I

Best known for his monuments to Civil War heroes, American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens was trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he absorbed the latest tendencies in French sculpture. His wide-ranging career alternated between Europe and the United States, particularly New York, where he had a studio. By the end of 1897, Saint-Gaudens was back in Paris, which is surely where the sitting with Zorn took place. The sculptor had arrived from Boston, fresh from the success of his Shaw Memorial placed in the Boston Common. The work of thirteen years, it commemorated the Civil War commander Robert Gould Shaw and his company of African-American soldiers who nearly all perished in battle.