Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907)

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet and essayist best known for his celebrated writings, such as Treasure Island (1883) and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). The present work includes an inscription of one of Stevenson's poems, "To Will H. Low," published in Underwoods in 1887. A fellow artist himself, Low arranged the sitting between Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Stevenson, which resulted in the present sculpture.

Stevenson posed for Saint-Gaudens in September of 1887, and the sculptor began modeling a portrait of the writer as a rectangular relief shortly thereafter. However, the artist soon concentrated instead on a circular design, which would be cast in various sizes. In 1902, Saint-Gaudens revisited his earliest design and authorized an edition of bronze casts based on the original rectangular model.

Other bronze rectangular reductions of Robert Louis Stevenson are in the collections of the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, Cornish, New Hampshire; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts; The Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, France; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.