American Art Collaborative

Cornelius Vanderbilt II hired John La Farge and Augustus Saint-Gaudens to create the interiors for his Manhattan mansion. The enormous fortunes of the nation's leading industrialists had brought about an American Renaissance of public and private architecture, and Vanderbilt's empire of railroads and steamships bought him a home of staggering opulence. Allegorical panels of jewels, glass, and mother-of-pearl spanned the forty-foot ceiling of the dining room. This relief of Apollo appeared in the ensemble, and was based on Byzantine and Pompeian art reproduced in books owned by La Farge. Gilt bronze relief portraits of the Vanderbilts on the surrounding walls further associated the Gilded Age family with the splendors of antiquity.

Exhibition Label, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2006