Lot 87: AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS (1848-1907)A Bronze Portrait Relief of William

Gedney Bunceinscribed in raised letters AVGVSTVS SAINT-GAVDENS FECIT and.MY.FRIEND.WILLIAM/.GEDNEY.BVNCE./.PARIS.M.D.C.C.C.LXX/ VII6 3/4 x 5 1/4 in. (17.2 x 13.4 cm.), dark brown patinaPROVENANCEPrivate Collection, ConnecticutLITERATUREThe National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Augustus Saint-Gaudens: The Portrait Reliefs, New York, 1969, cat. no. 5, illus. J. H. Dryfhout, The Work of Augustus Saint Gaudens, Hanover, N.H., 1982, pp. 27, 28, cat. no. 62K. Greenthal, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Master Sculptor, Boston, 1985, p. 82, fig. 62Known to his friends as "good old Bunce" or "the Bishop", William Gedney Bunce was born in Hartford in 1840. A fellow member of the Tile Club with Saint-Gaudens, Bunce shared his Rome studio with the sculptor upon the latter's arrival in Rome. He later shared Saint-Gaudens' studio in Paris in 1877 during which time the portrait relief was modeled.The plaster and the mold are in the collection of the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site. A bronze is in the collection of the Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, a gift of the sitter's niece in 1945. It is likely that the present bronze example also descended through the sitter's family.