Robert Louis Stevenson

Best known for his monumental public sculpture, Augustus Saint-Gaudens also crafted numerous portrait medallions of his friends, inspired by Renaissance medals he had seen in Rome. He made this relief of Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson--famous for Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde--when Stevenson visited the United States in 1887. Saint-Gaudens portrays the writer propped up in bed because Stevenson was bedridden with tuberculosis while Saint-Gaudens worked on the bronze. The deliberate informality of the portrait, showing the author's unkempt hair, wrinkled bedclothes, and cigarette held between thin fingers, is an example of Saint-Gaudens's naturalistic approach to sculpture. When Stevenson died seven years later, casts of Saint Gaudens's portrait became widely sought-after commeorative items sold through such venues as Tiffany & Co.