The Children of Prescott Hall Butler

The Children of Prescott Hall Butler

Augustus Saint-Gaudens

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Saint-Gaudens modeled this portrait of Charles Stewart Butler (1876–1954) and Lawrence Smith Butler (1875–1954) as a surprise gift from the architect Stanford White to the boys’ father, Prescott Hall Butler, a New York lawyer. The brothers are dressed in Scottish Highland attire: jackets and pleated kilts, with sporrans hanging from their waists. The endless ribbon at the upper left is inscribed twice with a line from the first book of Virgil’s Aeneid: "DABIT DEVS HIS QVOQVE FINEM" (The god will bring an end to this, too). This carving was one of three portraits of children commissioned by the Metropolitan from Saint-Gaudens in 1905.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.