Saint-Gaudens. A Work of Gold. The Moose License Plate

The first time I saw Amor Caritas in the atrium of the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Park, I decided I wanted to get married in front of it. I didn’t, for reasons more practical than aesthetic. But with every visit to the Park, I don’t rest until I come face to beautiful golden face with it. I sit on one of the side benches and just stare and breathe.

As now-retired curator extraordinaire Dr. Henry Duffy will tell you, Amor Caritas was a globetrotter prior to finding its current home in Cornish, New Hampshire in 1948. Recently, its gilding needed some attention. Listen to Mr. Duffy’s brief history of the piece (click below), then have a second cup of coffee while you watch conservator Robert Shure administer some tender loving care to this most loved work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens.

Think of the Amor Caritas when you see a New Hampshire Moose Plate, a program begun by fourth grade students at the Holderness Central School in 1993. The New Hampshire State Council on the Arts (NHSCA) provides grants under the Conservation License Plate Program, commonly called the “Moose Plate” program, for the conservation of publicly owned artworks, and artistic elements of publicly owned historic cultural facilities that serve as sites for arts programming, as well as for other related causes. (Click here to see how to get, or even gift, a Moose Plate.)

(Photo, top, by Susan B. Apel. Video by Preservation Educational Institute, Historic Windsor Inc.)

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And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.