Just for one moment, stop and think about how many coins there are in United States history that you know about. Now think about all the coins you do not. Combined they create a lucrative, interwoven tapestry that has stood the test of time (mostly) and are now in the hands of collectors around the world. While we talk about their value and perhaps their longevity more than anything, we sometimes neglect one of the most important details when it comes to individual coins: their design and who created it. Not only that, we also neglect to get to know that designer, only giving them their singular credit when in fact, they are well-known and prominent within the community of artists they come from.
Continuing that thought, that is where this series is derived from; the thirst for even more knowledge so to speak. Kicking us off with a notable bang is one of the most famous names whispered throughout the numismatic business. While his notoriety in the hobby is massive, his reach into the artistic world is well beyond what he is known for numismatically speaking. He is acknowledged as one of the leading American sculptors of the late nineteenth century and continues to be a solid foundation for the future of coin design.
Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Born to a French father and an Irish mother on March 1, 1848, in Dublin, Ireland, Augustus Saint Gaudens was just a baby when he and his family moved to New York City. Showing an interest in the arts from a young age, he apprenticed for a cameo (hard or precious stone carved in relief) cutter at the age of 13. While learning that craft, he continued his education at night at Cooper Union from 1861 to 1865. He then studied at the National Academy of Design in New York from 1865-1866. Saint-Gaudens was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1867 and became one of the first Americans to study sculpture in Paris along with Olin Levi Warner and Howard Roberts. His craft would eventually lead him to Rome, Italy, late in 1870 where he still did cameo cutting and worked on replicating famous antique statues on commission. During this time he also worked on his own creative compositions.
Saint-Gaudens would make his return back to New York in 1875. There he would become friends with and collaborate with a small group of men that would become the center of an American artistic movement. Some of those men included architects Henry Hobson Richardson (father of the Romanesque Revival), Stanford White (partner in the architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White), and Charles Follen McKim (partner in the architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White), and painter John La Farge (painter, muralist, stained glass designer). Saint-Gaudens would go on to produce one of the most important works in his early career 1880 which was a monument to Admiral David Farragut in Madison Square Garden. The base of the monument was designed by Stanford White.
For nearly two decades (1880-1897), he would create some of his most notable works while gaining an irrefutable reputation and accumulating many honors along the way. Some of those works include two caryatids for a fireplace in Cornelius Vanderbilt’s home alongside John La Farge, the Amor Caritas sculpture (which took eight years), a standing statue of Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln Park, Chicago, a memorial to Henry Adams’ wife in Washington, D.C., and a monument of Robert G. Shaw (colonel of an African American regiment during the American Civil War) in Boston. He would then make his way back to Paris where he spent three years working on his final major public sculpture. The Sherman Monument, which was unveiled in the Grand Army Plaza in New York in 1903, honored William Tecumseh Sherman who was one of the most well-known generals of the United States.
Later on in his career, he developed an interest in numismatics and coins. This would lead him to make many medallions in addition to design for United States coinage. President Theodore Roosevelt would enlist Saint-Gaudens in his revolution to redesign all U.S. coins and he would famously go on to design the ten and twenty dollar gold coins: the $10 Gold Indian Head Eagle and the $20 Gold Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle. He produced the designs between 1905 and 1907 while the United States Mint was still under the lead of Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber. Today, these two coins are still considered some of the most beautiful and most sought after by collectors. In addition to the gold pieces, he was also commissioned to redesign the one cent piece and a pattern was created but never produced. These works would help him become the first sculptor in America to design coins for the United States in an official manner. His assistant at the time, Bela Lyon Pratt, would also go on to design famous gold coins for the Mint alongside Saint-Gaudens.
While Saint-Gaudens’ double eagle was no longer used after 1933, his design would once again resurface in 1986 as it was used on the obverse of the American Gold Eagle. The reverse would use a different design but the coins would go on to be produced as bullion in denominations of $5 (1/10th oz), $10 (1/4th oz), $25 (½ oz), and $50 (1oz). The Mint also produced a commemorative of his original double eagle in the form of the Ultra High Relief $20 Saint- Gaudens Double Eagle that featured both the original reverse and obverse designs.
Saint-Gaudens would go on to pass in August of 1907. His garden and house are now preserved in his very own national park called The Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site.
Source: USA Coinbook, Britannica