Adams Memorial

The Adams Memorial is a grave marker located in Section E of Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D.C., featuring a cast bronze allegorical sculpture by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. The shrouded figure is seated against a granite block which forms one side of a hexagonal plot, designed by architect Stanford White. Across a small light-toned granite plaza, a comfortable stone bench invites visitors to rest and meditate. The whole is sheltered by a close screen of dense conifers, more dense and uniform in 2015 than in the photograph to the right.

Erected in 1891, the monument was commissioned by author/historian Henry Adams as a memorial to his wife, Marian "Clover" Hooper Adams. Suffering from depression, she had killed herself by ingesting potassium cyanide, a chemical used to develop photographs. Adams advised Saint-Gaudens to contemplate iconic images from Buddhist devotional art. One such subject, Kannon , is frequently depicted as a seated figure draped in cloth. In particular, a painting of Kannon by Kanō Motonobu, in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and shown to Saint-Gaudens by John LaFarge, is said to have played a major role in influencing the conception and design of this sculpture.

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