"Memory" by E. Prosser Rhys

John Gibson (1790-1866) sculptures on display at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff.

1. Phaeton Driving the Chariot of the Sun, about 1848, marble.
   Information via National Museum, Cardiff: "In Greek legend, Phaeton persuaded his father the Sun to let him drive his chariot across the sky. He could not manage its great horses, and the Sun came too close to the Earth. The gods saved the world by killing Phaeton with a thunderbolt. This work was brought by the banker and art collector John Naylor of Leighton Hall, Welshpool. … Given by H. L.Marks, 1952."
2. Aurora, 1842, marble.
   "Aurora is the goddess of the dawn. Gibson wrote that she has "one foot in the waves, the other softly touching the earth... She is clad in a rich and transparent vest, her delicate limbs are unrestrained and free... Aurora has filled the two vases with pure dew from the sea, and as she moves onwards she scatters the pearly drops over the earth whereby the flowers are refreshed." 
3. Nymph and Cupid, about 1861-63, marble.“Gibson wrote that he “spent most of the winter of 1859 modelling a group representing what I saw in the street, when I made a sketch of the action - a girl of about fourteen throwing up a child and kissing it.” He used the model to create a Nymph kissed by Cupid, the god of love, which he carved for his patron William Sandbach of Hafodunnos." 

John Gibson was born in Conwy in 1790 and studied sculpture in Rome from 1817, becoming one of the most popular sculptors in Rome in the nineteenth century. 

His studio was highly influential in the art world, as well as being a tourist point. Feminist and queer female sculptors such as Welsh sculptor Mary Charlotte Lloyd (whose partner was Frances Power Cobbe) and Harriet Hosmer worked in his studio, also meeting other like-minded women in Rome. 

John Gibson himself was in a relationship with the Welsh artist Penry Williams when they met in Rome. John Gibson died in Rome in 1866.