This photo taken Thursday, June 2, 2016, shows the home where sculpture Augustus Saint-Gaudens stayed when he sculpted "Standing Lincoln" in Cornish, N.H. Saint-Gaudens was commissioned to to make a monument for the fallen president Abraham Lincoln and was convinced to come to the rural New Hampshire town after being told there were plenty of Lincoln-shaped men in the area. More than a century later a life size replica of the original will be installed on the grounds where the first was cast. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)
This photo taken Thursday, June 2, 2016, shows the home where sculpture Augustus Saint-Gaudens stayed when he sculpted "Standing Lincoln" in Cornish, N.H. Saint-Gaudens was commissioned to to make a monument for the fallen president Abraham Lincoln and was convinced to come to the rural New Hampshire town after being told there were plenty of Lincoln-shaped men in the area. More than a century later a life size replica of the original will be installed on the grounds where the first was cast. (AP Photo/Jim Cole) Credit: Jim Cole

Lincoln statue returning to N.H.

CONCORD, N.H. — More than a century after the promise of “plenty of Lincoln-shaped men” attracted one of the greatest sculptors of the late 19th century to rural New Hampshire, a replica of his famed monument to the fallen president is being installed on the grounds of his former home and studio.

“Abraham Lincoln: The Man” — more commonly referred to as “Standing Lincoln” — was commissioned in 1884 for Lincoln Park in Chicago. The 12-foot bronze statue by Augustus Saint-Gaudens shows a larger-than-life Lincoln standing in front of a chair, head slightly bowed, left hand grasping the lapel of his coat. Dedicated in 1887, it was greeted with uniform respect, said Thayer Tolles, curator of American paintings and sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Lincoln’s son, Robert Todd Lincoln, deemed it the best likeness of his father ever made.

“I really think it was the Standing Lincoln that really put him on the map in a national way,” said Tolles.