Josephine Shaw Lowell

Augustus Saint-Gaudens

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

While working on the monument to General William Tecumseh Sherman (1892-1903; Grand Army Plaza, New York) in Paris between 1897 and 1900, Saint-Gaudens executed several independent portrait commissions including a bas-relief of Josephine Shaw Lowell (1843-1905). Lowell was the older sister of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and founder of New York’s Charity Organization Society (now the Community Service Society). The resulting portrait depicts the middle-aged Lowell with a hint of a double chin, her hair gathered and twisted at the back. Her delicate lace fichu, with its undulating ruffles, is particularly fluently rendered. To her left, Saint-Gaudens included his customary monogram cipher. The portrait was translated to marble in 1901 by Saint-Gaudens’s sister-in-law, Annetta Johnson St. Gaudens (who used a variant spelling of the family name). Upon its completion, Lowell expressed her satisfaction for "making her look so well."

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art