Description

For three and a half weeks, beginningon Monday, 15 July 1850,the world's most acclaimed contemporarystatue, The Greek Slave by HiramPowers, was exhibited to an admiringpublic in Montreal. The writer for theMontreal Gazette caught the excitementof those days when he describedthe statue as "the most exquisitelychaste and perfect model of the humanform that has been ever executed." Inthe context of such extravagant praiseand the statue's almost universal fame— reflections of Victorian taste —, it iseasy to understand the popularity ofsmall reproductions of The Greek Slavein Parian ware, and advertisements fortheir sale in both Montreal andToronto. But this particular artisticrage subsided by the end of the 19thcentury.What follows is the story, mostlyfactual, occasionally conjectural, of oneof those Parian statuettes, of the twofamilies who owned it, and of thosematters of taste that it still raises.