Hear the Curator (PP36)

This slightly larger than life-size relief of James McCosh depicts the former College of New Jersey President preaching at the pulpit. It is a copy of a work by the famed Beaux-Arts sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. The sculpture was originally placed in Marquand Chapel by the Class of 1879 as a tenth-reunion gift; when a fire destroyed the chapel in 1920 the sculpture was severely damaged. Fortunately, a cast of the entire relief had been made for a 1908 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. For their fiftieth reunion, the Class of 1879 worked with Saint-Gaudens’s widow to create a copy using the cast. The copy was installed here, in the north transept of the University Chapel. The head of the original sculpture was restored in 1924 and is usually on display in the Rare Books reading room at Firestone Library.