Price of a statue?

[Ambrus]

The priestess PC in my Pathfinder Planescape campaign has been dutifully setting money aside for awhile in hopes of eventually commissioning the creation of a statue of Athena for her modest temple. I've looked in the Arms & Equipment Guide as well as the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook but can't find any mention of such a thing. Anyone know if it's been covered in any WotC sourcebook? If not, anyone care to hazard a guess as to what a professionally crafted statue might run? The priestess would like to know the difference in cost for one made of bronze, marble or ivory.

 

[Jack Simth]

The priestess PC in my Pathfinder Planescape campaign has been dutifully setting money aside for awhile in hopes of eventually commissioning the creation of a statue of Athena for her modest temple. I've looked in the Arms & Equipment Guide as well as the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook but can't find any mention of such a thing. Anyone know if it's been covered in any WotC sourcebook? If not, anyone care to hazard a guess as to what a professionally crafted statue might run? The priestess would like to know the difference in cost for one made of bronze, marble or ivory.

It's fine art. How much do you want it to cost?

Look at statues in real-life. You've got everything from the essentially priceless David by Michaelangelo, to the carvings that are sold for $5 at Christmas-time.

Pick a DC for how precise a rendition you want it to be. Square it. Multiply by an arbitrary number, and you've got a price tag.

 

[jaywolfenstien]

I can't think of any source that has covered it, but then again I've never even considered it so who knows.

If it came up in the middle of a session, I would use the price of Mwk Full-plate armor as a base. It scales up and down as the size increases, there's rules for pricing non-humanoid creatures, and there's prices for special materials in the DMG. It probably won't be appropriate to use those numbers exactly, but like I said, I think it's probably the best starting point since it accounts for many creature types of many different sizes and many materials.

And if 1650gp seems like too much for a statue of a medium sized creature, whip out a calculator and divide it by half or something.

Of course, that still leaves the question of "How do I price statues of non-organic subjects?"

 

[pawsplay]

Well, Michaelangelo spent two years carving David, which is about three times the height of a person. Given the scope of the project, and assuming marble, it's probably a good idea to use stone shape to safely transform the marble into an approximation of Athena's form, which can then be worked on by a sculptor. I am going to wildly guess the sculpting can be done in six months.

So, six months labor from a 6th level expert, plus the cost of several tons of marble. A stone golem, with less artistic demands but which also requires exceptional work on hard stone, costs 5000 gp for a Large structure, or 105,000 for a Huge one.

Bronze is going to somewhat more expensive. However, making it bigger is more of an engineering project than acquiring and preserving a very large stone. Ivory... how big a statue are we talking?

So my estimations:
Medium, marble 300 gp
Large, marble 6000 gp
Huge, marble 120,000 gp
Medium, bronze 600 gp
Large, bronze 12,000 gp
Huge, bronze 150,000 gp

 

[Jhaelen]

I'd use the material cost for constructing golems as a first guideline.
How much does a stone golem or a caryatid column cost?

 

[Ambrus]

Thanks for the help! I indeed used the cost of stone and iron golems as a guideline, taking their costs to be a high-water mark for exceptional quality. Here's what I emailed my player:

"For a modest temple a statue nine or ten feet high would be appropriately grandiose without unduly dwarfing its surroundings. Stone is much cheaper than bronze. At the low end, a marble statue of moderate quality would likely start around 2,000 gold. A more masterfully sculpted depiction of the goddess could likely run up to around 5,000 gold. Costs could likely be reduced significantly if the actual statue were reduced in size and set atop a larger pedestal. A comparatively sized bronze casting of Athena would likely start around 5,000 gold and could easily run up to 10,000 for a true masterpiece."

I suspect thats it's far more than she was hoping for though. Oh well, the gods expect sacrifices right?

 

[jaywolfenstien]

I'd use the material cost for constructing golems as a first guideline.
How much does a stone golem or a caryatid column cost?

Oh, good call. I didn't even think about Golems. I officially change my vote.

 

[Vegepygmy]

It's fine art. How much do you want it to cost?

This.

 

[frankthedm]

i'd suspect the material prices for golems are way overinflated.

 

[Jhaelen]

i'd suspect the material prices for golems are way overinflated.

Yes, probably.