Sorrow and Loss

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Adams Memorial grave marker (1891) at Rock Creek Cemetery, DC is not well known, but its image haunts the memory far longer than more famous American works.

The Memorial commemorates historian Henry Adams' wife, Clover Adams, who committed suicide in 1885 at the age of 42.

When [Augustus] Saint-Gaudens undertook the Adams commission, he drew on the precedents of both Eastern and Western art. Because of its cloak and flowing drapery, we presume the statue to be female, but Adams wrote that he wanted an expression of “universality and anonymity.” The sculptor achieved this by making the figure just over life-size and generalizing the features.

If the viewer is moved, as was your humble blogger, to a sense of sorrow and loss as well as contemplation, then the artist likely has achieved his goal.