Cornelius Vanderbilt I

Cornelius Vanderbilt I

Augustus Saint-Gaudens

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Saint-Gaudens’s work for Cornelius Vanderbilt II’s grand residence on Fifth Avenue at Fifty-Seventh Street included three low-relief portraits of family members. The posthumous likeness of patriarch Cornelius Vanderbilt I, a steamship and railroad entrepreneur, presents the Commodore, as he was known, posed in profile against a dense background of oak leaves and acorns. This motif, symbolizing strength and regeneration, was adapted from the family coat of arms, visible at the lower right. Saint-Gaudens’s bas-relief style underwent a noticeable shift in the early 1880s to incorporate such aestheticizing elements, rendering this portrait in harmony with the sumptuous tapestries and embossed leathers that decorated the house’s interior.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Cornelius Vanderbilt ICornelius Vanderbilt ICornelius Vanderbilt ICornelius Vanderbilt ICornelius Vanderbilt I

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.