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Model of the Greek Slave
Hiram Powers (born Woodstock, VT 1805-died Florence, Italy 1873)
1843
- Medium
- plaster and metal pins
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- 66 3/8 x 21 1/2 x 18 3/8 in. (168.6 x 54.6 x 46.6 cm)
- Culture
- Greece
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase in memory of Ralph Cross Johnson
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
This plaster cast is as close as we can get to Powers' "original" Greek Slave. It was made in the artist's studio directly from Powers' clay model and records the date "March 12, 1843," when the sculptor proclaimed he finished modeling his masterpiece in clay. Powers carefully sculpted the body but did minimal work on the locket, cross, and drapery, since it was more efficient to refer to real examples of these objects when carving these elements in marble. Similarly, Powers did not lose time modeling the chains that were so important to the sculpture's narrative. Instead, he attached real metal chains, which scraped into the plaster figure's right thigh.
