Standing Lincoln Yale University Art Gallery

ca. 1912, after 1884–87 original reduced in 1910–11

On view, 2nd floor, American Art before 1900

This naturalistic sculpture of Abraham Lincoln—tall, gaunt, and meditative—reflects Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s indelible impression from having seen, as a young man, the sixteenth president. Campaigning in the streets of New York, "Lincoln stood tall in the carriage, his dark uncovered head bent in contemplative acknowledgment of the waiting people." For models, Saint-Gaudens used life casts of Lincoln’s hands and face and asked a man of the same height to pose for the figure. This sculpture is a reduced version of the large-scale bronze commissioned for Chicago’s Lincoln Park.

Medium: Bronze with dark reddish-brown patina
Dimensions: 40 × 30 1/2 × 16 1/4 in. (101.6 × 77.5 × 41.3 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Allison V. Armour, B.A. 1884
Accession Number: 1937.193
Geography: Made in Cornish, New Hampshire, United States
Culture: American
Period: 19th or 20th century
Classification: Sculpture
Disclaimer: Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Bibliography

Mark D. Mitchell, The Dance of Life: Figure and Imagination in American Art, 1876–1917, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2024), 40–41, no. 8, ill.

American Art: Selections from the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2023), 152–53, no. 67, ill.

Thayer Tolles, "Abraham Lincoln: The Man (Standing Lincoln): A Bronze Statuette by Augustus Saint-Gaudens," Metropolitan Museum Journal 48 (2013), 231, 236, no. 48

Object copyright

No Copyright - United States

Additional information

Object/Work type

human figures (visual works), portraits

Subject

lawyers presidents statesmen

Inscriptions

Inscribed on front crest rail of chair in relief: E / PLVRIBVS / VNVM

Signed

Signed and dated lower front edge of proper right side of relief: AVGVSTVS SAINT-GAVDENS - SCVLPTOR - MDCCC-LXXXVII

Technical metadata and APIs

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