Modern · Smithsonian American Art Museum · saam_1969.176
Charles Cotesworth Beaman
Augustus Saint-Gaudens, modeled 1894
Smithsonian American Art Museum · Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Charles C. Beaman · CC0 · Public domain
- Artist
- Augustus Saint-Gaudens
- Date
- modeled 1894
- Medium
- bronze
- Dimensions
- 26 1/8 x 14 7/8 in. (66.2 x 37.9 cm.)
- Era
- Modern
Why it matters
An essay that Charles Beaman wrote as a Harvard law student so impressed Senator Charles Sumner, then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that he hired the young man as his private secretary. This led to Beaman’s appointments to international posts and ultimately to a partnership in a prestigious New York law firm. The architect Stanford White introduced the lawyer to Augustus Saint-Gaudens around 1884. Beaman offered to rent his house in Cornish, New Hampshire, to the talented young sculptor so that he could work on his commission for Chicago’s Lincoln Park monument. Saint-Gaudens fell in love with the house and, after renting it repeatedly, convinced Beaman to sell it to him for a reduced price and this bronze portrait.