Charles Loring Elliott 1867

Editor: This bas-relief is Charles Calverley’s portrait of Charles Loring Elliott from 1867. It’s carved in marble, a classical medium. I’m struck by how it monumentalizes Elliott; there's a lot of labor in the carving itself. What draws your attention in this portrait? Curator: What interests me is marble itself. Its extraction and transportation would have been major undertakings. This marble would likely have been seen as luxury material. And what about the tools and processes? Did Calverley use industrial tools or more traditional hand carving? The answer drastically shifts the way we understand the labor that made this artwork a reality. Editor: I didn’t consider the source of the materials! Did the availability of marble in the US affect sculptural practices at the time? Curator: Precisely! It’s key to consider marble production and distribution. We must think about who had access to it, who profited from its trade, and the working conditions of quarry laborers to really understand a sculpture like this. Did the source quarry use convict labor, for example? This background of labor is just as much the art object as the finished bust! Editor: That makes me think about skill, too. Was Calverley’s labor valued differently as the *artist*, even though quarrymen physically extracted the marble? Curator: That's a brilliant question. We’re taught to celebrate the artist’s hand, often obscuring the contributions of numerous other makers and the network of resources behind even seemingly ‘singular’ works of art. Examining this through the lens of materialist studies brings a different view. Editor: This has really changed how I look at the sculpture. I see now that its artistic value hinges on so many unseen elements like labor and accessibility of the medium itself. Curator: Exactly. Material informs meaning. We must acknowledge the social and economic relations embedded in the art itself to fully understand and evaluate its worth.