George Washington 1875

John Rogers created this figure of George Washington in the 19th century, using plaster. Though Rogers trained as a sculptor, he is best known for his mass-produced statuettes. Plaster allowed him to do just that. This was a canny choice of material, bringing sculpture into middle-class homes, and his subjects were usually topical or sentimental, designed to appeal to a broad audience. Rogers sold thousands of these figures, and the repetitive labor of making these artworks was divided among a small team of workers in his workshop. Here, the plaster has been given a dark bronze finish, suggesting the tradition of civic statuary, but the plaster's lightness and fragility contrast with bronze’s associations of permanence and grandeur. Even so, Rogers’s George Washington captured the popular imagination, creating an opportunity for a wide audience to engage with fine art. This brings the artwork closer to design, but also to an aesthetic experience.