Elephant Cemetery or Parks Dept Storage Yard

upfromflames: 5th Dec 2009 - 13:14 GMT

Ntatap: I was intrigued by these images, so I passed them on to someone who would know more--Justin Ferate, leading NYC tour guide. Here is his reponse:

"I was surprised to see the sedilla (seat/bench) from the David Glasgow Farragut Monument from Madison Square (now, often erroneously referred to as “Madison Square Park”).

When I was at the St. Gaudens studio in Cornish, New Hampshire, they had indicated that they had the original base and that the one in Madison Square was a copy...I see this “extra” version in the Parks Department storage shed and the plot thickens. Hmmmm......

Here’s what the current statue and base look like.

The statue was by Augustus Saint-Gaudens an the base was by Stanford White... This is (in my opinion) one the nation’s greatest public art works.

It’s spectacular in every sense of the word! The base is arguably the first “Art Nouveau” architecture in America. (The base was done in 1880 and Art Nouveau is generally placed between 1890-1905.)

ntatap: 7th Dec 2009 - 01:34 GMT

Does anyone know where the rest of the original is and why a copy is now in the park?
If you look carfully at the photos I took you can see the wood supports inside and they dont look old at all.

Justin Ferate: 8th Dec 2009 - 03:49 GMT

Here's a thought... During the Augustus Saint-Gaudens exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum some years back, the Museum took the actual statue of David Glasgow Farragut to exhibit, meanwhile placing a reproduction in Madison Square. Perhaps the base in the photograph is the one used for the reproduction statue. Jonathan Kuhn, the Parks Department Arts & Antiquities Director, might know the answer to this question. After the exhibition (not the most recent Saint-Gaudens show), the Metropolitan Museum rather presumptuously suggested that the copy remain in Madison Square and that the actual sculpture remain in the Museum. The New York Times, in a rare moment of levity, spoofed the Museum's proposal by illustrating a rugged wooden charrette (cart) from the French Revolution, with a hostage Statue of Liberty being carried off to the Metropolitan Museum for "safekeeping." (I regret not saving that cartoon.) Since the wooden struts in the photographs of the Farragut Memorial base would intimate that it this version is a stage set, this might explain its origins. Another potential source for an explanation would be to check with the Augustus Saint-Gaudens Historic Site in Cornish, New Hampshire.