Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Amor Caritas is a smaller version of a gilded sculpture that Saint-Gaudens created at his studio in Cornish, New Hampshire. The draped angel was one of his signature themes, evolving from a figure he first invented for a private tomb and later transformed into mantelpiece caryatids for Cornelius Vanderbilt’s New York mansion. Saint-Gaudens learned relief carving—sculpting projected forms from a background support—through an early apprenticeship with cameo makers. Later formal training at Cooper Union, the National Academy of Design, and the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, led him to an appreciation of Renaissance sculpture, whose humanizing of classical figures is evident in this “angel of love.”