Second plaster model, completed in Florence, after 1843, likely 1865

Second plaster model, completed in Florence, after 1843, likely 1865

The distinctive iron manacles attached to the figure relate this second full-size plaster to Powers’s sixth and final version of The Greek Slave, made in 1866 and now in the Brooklyn Museum. The conception of the statue coincided with the end of the Civil War. Powers’s substitution of the linked chains that appear in all the earlier marble versions with a set of straight-bar manacles gives visual expression to his response to slavery at the time, making the statue an explicit abolitionist emblem.

It is likely that this second working model was cast from the same molds as the first and made expressly for the production of the sixth statue. We know that Powers was at work on the sixth statue by January 1866, which puts the date of the plaster to 1865 or earlier.

 

 

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Hiram Powers, second pointing model of *The Greek Slave*, after 1843, likely 1865. Plaster with metal pins and metal shackles. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC.
Hiram Powers, second pointing model of The Greek Slave, after 1843, likely 1865. Plaster with metal pins and metal shackles. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC. Hiram Powers, second pointing model of The Greek Slave, after 1843, likely 1865. Plaster with metal pins and metal shackles. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC.