Saint-Gaudens’s Victory for Sale

Victory, the statue sculpted by Augustus Saint-Gaudens that inspired his iconic double eagle (gold $20), has stood atop the William Tecumseh Sherman Monument at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street in New York City since 1903. Fewer than a dozen smaller, gilded bronze casts of the winged figure are believed to exist, and one is being offered in Heritage Auctions’ American Art Auction on November 13. It is estimated to realize $800,000-$1.2 million.

“Victory brings together so much of what makes American art extraordinary: sculptural beauty, public ambition, and a remarkable national story,” says Aviva Lehmann, Heritage’s Deputy Chairman of Fine Art. “From the Sherman monument in New York to Saint-Gaudens’s collaboration with Theodore Roosevelt on American coinage, Victory connects worlds that collectors often encounter separately. Yet its power is immediate. You feel her conviction and promise of that forward stride.”

Saint-Gaudens began working on the Sherman monument in 1892 and spent more than a decade perfecting it before its unveiling at Grand Army Plaza. Black model Hettie Anderson posed for the sculptor in 1897, and her ability to sustain demanding poses was central to Victory’s creation. Ahead of the mounted general, Victory advances with an outstretched arm, rising wings, and flowing drapery. Her laurel crown and palm frond identify the classical allegory, but her momentum makes it immediate: a figure seemingly poised between walking and flight, leading toward the promise of peace.

The bronze reduction up for auction was cast between 1912 and the early 1920s after the artist’s widow, Augusta, arranged for a reduced plaster model following his death in 1907. The 38-inch-tall statue appears alongside 79 other lots spanning the Hudson River School, the Gilded Age, American Modernism, the Harlem Renaissance, Regionalism, and the Golden Age of Illustration.

For more details, visit Heritage Auctions’ website.

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