Victory

Augustus Saint-Gaudens

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Adapted from the full-size figure of Victory on Saint-Gaudens’s equestrian monument to the Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman (1892–1903; Grand Army Plaza, Manhattan), this winged allegorical figure is depicted as a triumphant guiding force. Her classicizing gown is emblazoned with an eagle, and she wears a crown of laurel and holds a palm frond—both traditional emblems of victory. The windblown pose recalls that of the Hellenistic marble "Nike of Samothrace" (Musée du Louvre, Paris). The principal model for Victory was Hettie Anderson, an African American woman who was a favored artists’ model in New York during the 1890s.

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