Robert Louis Stevenson

Augustus Saint-Gaudens

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Impressed by Robert Louis Stevenson’s collection of stories "New Arabian Nights" (1882), Saint-Gaudens told their mutual friend, Will Low, that he would be honored to model a portrait if the writer were ever to come to the United States. The opportunity presented itself in 1887–88, when Stevenson (1850–1894) sat for the sculptor in New York and later in Manasquan, New Jersey. Stevenson, suffering from tuberculosis, is shown writing in bed, as was his custom. The lengthy inscription is a poem by Stevenson dedicated to Low and published in 1887. The portrait became Saint-Gaudens’s most popular relief and was produced in three diameters (this is the largest size) as well as in rectangular variants.

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