1860s
Shaw builds a mausoleum, but then later rejects it.

Victory statue. Original in Pitti Gallery, Florence, Italy.

View of the Mausoleum, with Mrs. Trelease in mourning. 1889.

Shaw left an oval shaped area surrounding the grove of trees near his home for a special purpose. This grove was to be his final resting place. He constructed a mausoleum there in which he would be laid to rest. Actually, he built two mausoleums. The first was an octagonal limestone structure with a copper roof. Shaw decided he did not like this model because the runoff of the rain from the copper roof tended to turn the stones green. Shaw moved this structure out of the grove and used it to house another sculpture by Carlo Nicoli, also a reproduction of an ancient Roman statue. It was called Victory, and symbolized the Victory of Science over Ignorance. (It is not, as many schoolchildren assume, a statue of Mrs. Shaw - because as mentioned above there was no Mrs. Shaw.)