Saint-Gaudens’ Signature, Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Guest Book

Making of the Memorial The Sculptor: Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Item contributed by The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Famed art collector, philanthropist, and museum founder, Isabella Stewart Gardner attended the unveiling of the Civil War Memorial on Memorial Day, 1897, and, that evening, hosted its celebrated sculptor Augustus Saint Gaudens and his family at the Boston Pops. Saint Gaudens signed her guest book with, “We are going to the Popular Concert which I hugely enjoy—a nervous day, the day of the unveiling of the Shaw.” To ensure the special day would be remembered, Isabella later pasted a picture of the Memorial on the page.