John Gibson, the Welsh-born Neoclassical sculptor, was acknowledged as a leading figure in the Roman school of sculpture. Gibson began his artistic career in Liverpool. He later resided in London, where he learned about the art and business of sculpture production. At the age of twenty-seven, Gibson arrived in Rome in 1817 and began studying under the master sculptor Antonio Canova. Although it had been Gibson’s intention to return to London, he remained in Rome the rest of his life. As his reputation grew, his patronage by royalty came to include Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, King Ludwig I of Bavaria, and Czar Alexander II. But his largest patron base was the socially and culturally rising middle class. Gibson accommodated the needs of his patrons through regular commissions of works in marble; however, he also encouraged the dissemination of his designs in other less-expensive media, such as statuettes, cameos, and prints. The international dissemination of his works in various reproductive media thus reinforced his reputation as one of the most important sculptors of the nineteenth century.

Joseph Gibson lived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. After the death of his wife, he wrote to his sister and brother-in-law in England, Alice and John Gindall, asking if they would send their daughter Sarah to care for him. Though they refused on the grounds of her young age, Gibson wrote again with the same request in 1754 to Sarah's husband, John Barker, insisting that he would make her his heir if she accepted. Sarah agreed and migrated to New England in 1755 with her son from her first marriage, William Hall, leaving behind her husband and a daughter, Alice. Gibson died sometime after 1770.

Thomas Gibson was born in Ireland and received his medical training at Edinburgh. In 1895, he came to Canada as medical A.D.C. to the Governor-General, Lord Aberdeen. He set up practice in Ottawa and was medical attendant to four successive Governors-General. In 1924, he accepted the Douglas Chair of Therapeutics and Pharmacology at Queens University, Kingston. Gibson was known not only for his teaching but also for his historical writings on medical subjects.