Skip to main content

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Agnus Memorial (Unauthorized copy of "Grief" by Gaudens) by Eduard Ludwig Albert Pausch
Photo CreditPhoto courtesy of McKay Lodge Fine Arts Conservation Laboratory, Inc.
Agnus Memorial (Unauthorized copy of "Grief" by Gaudens)
Photo CreditPhoto courtesy of McKay Lodge Fine Arts Conservation Laboratory, Inc.

Agnus Memorial (Unauthorized copy of "Grief" by Gaudens)

Yearc. 1906
Classification sculpture
Medium bronze
Dimensions69.5 x 42 x 48 inches
YouTube Video(s) YouTube Video Link
  • In 1885, Henry Adams commissioned Augustus Saint-Gaudens to create a cemetery monument for his late wife, Marian "Clover" Adams. The Adams Memorial, as it is now known, still resides in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C., over the graves of Henry and Marian Adams. The sculpture was immensely popular, and, shortly after Saint-Gaudens died, an illicit copy of the memorial was fraudulently sold to General Felix Agnus, who placed it above his own family gravesite near Baltimore. Edward L.A. Pausch, who made the pirated copy, was a Danish-American sculptor known for creating war memorials and President McKinley’s death mask.



    For decades, Pausch’s copy stood over the Agnus gravesite in Pikesville, Maryland. It, too, became a popular site of visitation, and over the years became a source of local folklore, which attracted mischief and graffiti. In 1967, the cemetery asked the Agnus family to remove the sculpture and the family donated it to the Smithsonian Institution. There, experts affirmed that it is an unlicensed copy and placed it in storage. Two decades later, in 1987, the artwork was transferred to the GSA, which re-sited it for public display in the courtyard behind the Dolley Madison House.