Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Turning Points

"Jules Bastien Lepage" by
Augustus Saint-Gaudens

"My firing by Avet opened the second by-road in my career which led to my being a sculptor. At this time there lived in New York a man entirely the reverse of my first employer, Mr. Jules LeBrethon, a shell-cameo cutter, who earned his living by making the large shell-cameo portraits in vogue during this period of big hoop skirts. I had learned very easily with Avet the cutting of shell-cameos, this being a far simpler affair. To my delight, I discovered that he had a stone-cameo lathe, which he could not use. I began work at once, and the three years of so with him were as day is to night in comparison with my previous experience. The only thing that he had in common with Avet was that he also sang from morning to night. He, however, never scolded or showed anything but consideration in my affairs. Indeed, because of this interest, he even allowed me an extra hour every day, beside my dinner period, in which to model, and gave me instruction at that time.

My first trip to Europe, which was another turning point in my life, came about when, at the beginning of the year 1867, Father asked me if I would like to see the coming Paris Exposition. To my enthusiastic assent he said, 'We will arrange that,' since I had, of course, been giving my wages, which were ample for a boy of that age at that time, help the running of the family.

Between that date and the moment upon which my steamer sailed, three incidents alone hold their place in my memory. The first of them concerns one of the large and hilarious dinners interspersed through out lives, which on this occasion, father planned in honor of my departure. The second deals with another banquet furnished by good-hearted LeBrethon the night before I left, at which, as I picked up my napkin, I found under the plate one hundred francs in gold, 'To pay for a trip to father's village in France.' But most of all I recall how, during those last nights and Sunday, I made a bust of father and a drawing of mother. The latter, being perhaps the possession I treasured most in the world, was destroyed in the fire that a year ago burnt down my studio."

To be continued

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