Paris 

John Gibson completed this marble sculpture of Paris in the 19th century. Working with marble is no easy feat, requiring skill and patience to coax the hard stone into fluid forms. Notice the smoothness of the skin, sharply contrasted with the defined, almost crisp curls of hair, made entirely by hand. Gibson has taken a raw, geological material, and transformed it into a figure that seems almost touchable. During the Neoclassical period, sculptures like this were produced through the division of labor in a workshop setting, where teams of artisans would rough out copies of the original design. The master sculptor would then add the finishing touches. This production line approach allowed artists to increase output and meet market demands, but it also raises questions about authorship and the value of artistic labor. Thinking about the amount of work that went into this piece, from quarrying the marble to the final polish, can give us a deeper understanding of its value, both as an artwork and as a product of its time.