John Rogers drew heavily on theatrical scenes and incorporated gestures, facial expressions, and costumes, to convey action. He designed and mass produced inexpensive, cast plaster statuettes in series he called Rogers Groups, of which Coming to the Parson—which sold more than 8,000 copies—was his most successful. Rogers’s sense of humor is evident in this piece: as the couple asks a country parson to marry them, a cat and a dog prepare for a fight at their feet—perhaps suggesting the mutable nature of married life.