A bronze figure of Abraham Lincoln by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, $950,000 (£698,530) at Skinner.
The 3ft 4in (1m) high bronze titled Abraham Lincoln: The Man (Standing Lincoln) is by the American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907) and is a smaller version of a commission of 1883 for a monumental statue of the president for Chicago’s Lincoln Park.
Skinner’s bronze, which was cast before 1926, is one of a series of reductions cast from the original maquette made by Saint-Gaudens that were overseen by the sculptor’s widow and begun in 1912.
It is signed and inscribed COPYRIGHT 1912 BY A.H.SAINT-GAUDENS on the back edge of the base, and AVGVSTVS SAINT GAVDENS SCVLPTOR M.D.CCC.LXXXVII along the left edge, and inscribed E PLVRIBVS VNVM on the chair. It had a provenance to a Massachusetts educational institution, probably since the 1930s, possibly earlier.
It made $950,000 (£698,530), just over the upper end of its $700,000-900,000 estimate, and was sold to the Colby College Museum of Art, in Maine where it will now go on public display in the Lunder Collection.
