Life Cast of Left Forearm and Hand (fragment, study for "The Greek Slave")

Exhibition Label: This cast of a woman's forearm and hand eerily captures the unmistakable skin texture and muscle tone of a living model. Remarkably, it is the exact size and holds the same pose as the left arm and hand of The Greek Slave, inviting us to wonder who may have served as the artist's model for this famed sculpture and to what extent Powers relied on studies from life to create his idealized figures. Exhibition Label: Sculptors have long made casts of limbs and torsos to serve as anatomical study models. Many were also hired to make death mask impressions of the faces of deceased loved ones and public luminaries. The boundary between modeling in clay and body casting was strictly observed, and sculptors risked their reputations and credibility if they were suspected of "cheating" by substituting a body cast instead of modeling the figure themselves.