In the decades following the United States Civil War (1861-1865), American artists consciously allied their creations with the great art traditions of ancient Greece and Rome and the Italian Renaissance to advance a proud national sense of the high aspirations of American culture. In every area of American society and thought—from politics to finance, from city planning to architecture, and in every manner of artistic production—this was the American Renaissance. By 1876, the United States was, in the minds of many, on the verge of becoming a new Athens or a modern Florence, such was the perceived economic, intellectual and artistic potential of the young New World republic. Art was created in the service of high ideals.

Architects, designers and furniture makers were eager to adapt Greek shapes and Roman ornamentation to their productions in silver, ceramics, glass, wallpaper, textiles and furniture. Painters and sculptors collaborated on elaborate enterprises on the scale of the Italian Renaissance, whether working in the great houses of America's cultural elite or designing grand civic projects, like public squares and monuments to the country's military heroes.

One of the greatest exemplars of the Renaissance spirit in America was the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. He lent his talents to extraordinary civic projects; he collaborated with artists, designers, craftsmen, and architects in the spirit of artistic brotherhood that characterized this new Golden Age; and he selected for his sculpture subjects that might uplift and ennoble his audience.

For this, one of his most important monuments, Saint-Gaudens chose feminine beauty—as it was conveyed in sculptural models from Greece and Rome—as a symbol of what he considered to be the greatest measure of humankind: our potential for selfless giving to others. Or, to put it as Saint-Gaudens did in the Latin language of ancient Rome, our exalted capacity for amor (love) and caritas (charity).