Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Arrival in Paris

"Gertrude Vanderbilt at the Age of Seven"
by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

"My arrival in Paris in February 1867 was extraordinarily impressive. I walked with my heavy carpet bag, the weight of which increased, as I made my way up the interminable Avenue des Champs Elysees to my uncle François'. A day or two after my arrival I went about in search of employment at cameo cutting and of admission to the School of Fine Arts. The cameo cutting I obtained at once from an Italian, Lupi, supporting myself on what I earned by the cameos  and attending a modeling school in the mornings and nights.

However I found my entrance into the Beaux Arts a formidable business. After much running around, I saw at last M. Guillaume, the Director of the School, who, to my thinking, received me with unusual affability for so wonderful a man. I recall his smile as I told him that I expected to learn sculpture during the nine months I proposed to remain in Paris, the limit to which I had expected my money would extend. From him I gathered that I could enter only through the formal application of the American Minister. I thereupon called on Mr. Washburne, then occupying that post. He also seemed kind, smiled as I related my little story, and said that I would be informed when the application had been accepted. This notification I received exactly nine months after handing it in.

In the meantime, fortunately, I not only earned a good living by cutting cameos, but also entered a smaller school, though an excellent one, and began my Parisian studies, probably in March or April, 1868. We worked in a stuffy, overcrowded, absolutely unventilated theater, with two rows of students, perhaps twenty-five in each row, seated in a semicircle before the model who stood against the wall. Behind those who drew were about fifteen sculptors, and I look back with admiration upon the powers of youth to live, work, and be joyful in an atmosphere that must have been almost asphyxiating. Here I modeled my first figures from the nude, and laid an excellent foundation for the future." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his son Homer Saint-Gaudens.)