That long, white studio
became a familiar meeting-place for all who were interested in any form
of art; and the Sunday afternoon concerts that were held there for many
years will be looked back to with regret as long as any of their
auditors remain alive.
This studio was given up when Saint-Gaudens went abroad for the third
time, in 1897, to execute the Sherman group, and he never resumed his
residence in New York. In 1885 he had purchased a property at Cornish,
N.H., just across the Connecticut River from Windsor, Vt., and when he
returned to this country in 1900, covered with fresh honors but an ill
man, he made what had been a summer home his permanent abode. He named
it Aspet, after his father's birthplace, and there he erected two
studios and finished his Sherman statue. In these studios were executed
the second "Lincoln," the Parnell statue for Dublin, and much other
work. The larger studio was burned in 1904, but was rebuilt and the lost
work re-begun and carried to a conclusion. What can never be quite
replaced were two portraits of himself. A study, of the head only, in
the collection of the National Academy of Design and a sketch by Will H.
Low, painted in Paris in 1877, are now the only existing portraits of
him done from life in his best years.
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