English: Grave of Joseph Edward Willard at Oak Hill Cemetery, a historic secular cemetery in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C., in the United States.
Willard was United States Ambassador to Spain from 1913 to 1921.
The grave features a 40-inch-high reproduction of sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens' famous bas-relief, "Amor Caritas". "Amor Caritas" is one of the major works of American sculpture. It won Saint-Gaudens the Grand Prix of the Exhibition Universelle in Paris in 1900. After the work became universally praised, Saint-Gaudens began casting 40-inch-high versions. Wood framed versions are common, but many are stand-alone pieces and a few are gilded.
The only one used for funerary purposes is this one, on Willard's grave. It is worth more than $100,000, and was placed there in 1997 by the Kermit Roosevelt family. (Kermit Roosevelt was President Theodore Roosevelt's son. In 1914, Kermit married Belle Wyatt Willard, Joseph Willard's daughter. Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. was a CIA officer who engineered the overthrow of the democratically elected Iranian government in 1953, and Kermit Roosevelt III is a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania.) "Amor Caritas" was stolen from Oak Hill Cemetery in some time between November 27 and December 1, 1985. The cemetery discovered the theft on December 2, but kept the theft quiet in the hopes that it could be recovered. The work was removed by cutting the brass wires that held it to the stone base, and there was concern it might have been damaged due to the hasty way it was forced free.
The artwork was returned on March 13, 1986. According to police (who refused to divulge details), a buyer had purchased the statue and then read press reports about its theft. A lawyer in Frederick, Maryland, contacted law enforcement officials just after midnight on Thursday, March 13. Frederick police said they would accept the angel "no questions asked" in order to secure its return. The work was returned, and cemetery officials retrieved it on March 14.