Date : between 1892 and 1894
Material : Gilded bronze
Acquisition : Rogers Fund (1928)
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American Art
Sculpture (Statue)
Area related
New York City (USA)
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| Description |  |
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Model for weather vane. Second version Madison Square Garden Tower, New York City. This cast, 1928.
This Diana is a half-size model of a thirteen-foot-high statue designed to top the original Madison Square Garden. The design, by the architect Stanford White, is after the tower of Giralda adjoining the cathedral of Seville in Spain. Aware of Saint-Gaudens's desire to create idealized sculpture, White gave him the opportunity to produce a revolving weather vane for the tower. The first Diana (1891, eighteen feet high) made of sheet copper, proved too large and cumbersome in relation to the tower and was replaced in 1894 by a streamlined second version. The second Diana, also made of sheet copper, was removed in 1925, just before the Garden was demolished. It was presented to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1932 by the New York Life Insurance Company. Both versions had been designed with swirling drapery in order to propel the goddess in the wind, but the gusts proved too strong and the drapery eventually blew away. The sculpture was severely criticized for its nudity, but even as a campaign was launched to remove it from the tower, Diana was becoming one of New-York's most popular landmarks.
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