Machinist's Apprentice

Why it matters

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 life drawing classes in the United States, she learned to model the human form from the art around her in Europe and from a receptive circle of artists.