Machinist
Emma Stebbins
c. 1859
Medium
Marble
Dimensions
74.9 × 29.2 × 29.2 cm (29 1/2 × 11 1/2 × 11 1/2 in.)
Classification
sculpture
Department
Arts of the Americas
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
154237
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Emma Stebbins’s subject here is a modern one: an industrial worker and his young apprentice. Having studied Classical art, Stebbins applied its vocabulary and material to new ends. The harmonious, balanced forms depict contemporary men engaged in skilled pursuits that wed intellect and physical labor. Like many 19th-century American artists, Stebbins, born in New York, sought greater opportunity abroad, connecting with a community of female sculptors in Rome in the late 1850s. Denied access to l...