Hiram Powers (1805-1873) was the most internationally celebrated American sculptor of the nineteenth century and a founding figure of the American Neoclassical tradition. Born in Woodstock, Vermont, Powers moved with his family as a boy to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he received his earliest exposure to the arts and began his self-directed artistic education. Working initially as a mechanic and clockmaker, Powers demonstrated the technical skill and manual precision that would later serve him at every level of his sculptural practice, and his early years in the American West gave him the practical foundation on which his ambitious later career would rest.

Powers began producing sculpture in Cincinnati, where his early wax figures for a local museum brought him regional attention. He moved to Washington, D.C., in 1834, and there he produced portrait busts of several of the leading American political figures of the day, including Andrew Jackson, John Marshall, John Quincy Adams, and Daniel Webster. These early portraits established his reputation as one of the most gifted young American sculptors, and they gave him the professional standing to pursue the next essential step in his career.

In 1837 Powers moved permanently to Florence, Italy, joining the community of expatriate American sculptors who had settled there to take advantage of Italy's unrivaled marble resources, skilled artisans, and proximity to the classical models that defined Neoclassical practice. He would spend the rest of his life in Florence, where his studio became one of the most celebrated stops on the American Grand Tour and drew visitors from across Europe and the United States. His most famous sculpture, The Greek Slave of 1844, became one of the most widely reproduced and discussed images of the nineteenth century. The nude female figure, chained and displayed for sale in an Ottoman slave market, became a powerful symbol of Christian virtue in captivity and, for many American viewers, an allegory of the political situation in the Ottoman Empire and, more provocatively, of American slavery.

Powers exhibited The Greek Slave to enthusiastic crowds throughout the United States and Europe, and multiple marble versions were commissioned by leading collectors on both sides of the Atlantic. Powers died in Florence in 1873. His sculptures are held today in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, the Yale University Art Gallery, and other major collections.