Hiram Powers
1805–1873
Greek Slave, ca. 1873
Marble
Museum purchase, gift of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd, by exchange, and the Roscoe and Margaret Oakes Income Fund
Greek Slave depicts a woman who has been taken captive by Turkish forces during the Greek War of Independence (1821-1832) and displayed in a slave market. An earlier life-size version, one of the first fine art nudes exhibited in the United States, generated both controversy and acclaim. Many viewers, including former slaves who visited London's "Great Exhibition" of 1851, connected Powers's subject with enslaved African Americans, and the sculpture was adopted as a potent symbol by the international abolitionist movement in the years preceding the American Civil War (1861-1865).
