Kenyon Cox

Augustus Saint-Gaudens created this uniface medallion portrait of his friend Kenyon Cox (1856-1919) to reciprocate for a portrait of the sculptor that Cox had painted in 1887. The two American artists had met while studying in Paris under painters Emile Auguste Carolus-Duran and Jean-Léon Gérôme in 1877. The exchange of such portraits among classically trained artists of Saint-Gaudens's generation expressed friendship and professional respect.