First version, completed in Florence for John Grant, 1844

John Grant, a London-based captain of the British army, visited Powers’s studio in December 1843 and ordered the first version of The Greek Slave. It was completed in 1844. Grant was associated with the Royal Artillery and was known as an occasional inventor, including of a cooking system for army camps, about which he sent Powers a press clipping in 1858. The two men shared an interest in engineering, and Grant occasionally sent to Powers mechanical tools he thought would be useful in the studio.[1]