ARTISTRY

Saint Gaudens $20 Double Eagle Gold Piece

Move your cursor over the coin or tap it on your screen to see the reverse side.
Saint Gaudens $20 Double Eagle Gold Piece front
Saint Gaudens $20 Double Eagle Gold Piece back
  • In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt commissioned his friend, the renowned American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, to create new, more aesthetically pleasing American coins. Roosevelt especially liked the high-relief gold coins of ancient Greece.
  • The obverse, or front, of the coin features Liberty. Saint-Gaudens modeled her after the famous Greek sculpture Nike of Samothrace. Liberty strides forward bearing the torch of enlightenment in her right hand and the olive branch of peace in her left. The rising sun and the U.S. Capitol are in the background.
  • An eagle flies over a rising sun on the back, or reverse, of the coin.
  • Charles E. Barber, the U.S. Mint's chief engraver, completed Saint-Gaudens's designs of the eagle and double eagle coins after the sculptor's death in 1907.