![View in the East Nave; The Greek Slave, by Power [sic], from "Recollections of the Great Exhibition, 1851"](https://cdn.unlockedmuseums.com/items/6642630242ee7ee368c34ea5/1-700w.jpeg)
View in the East Nave; The Greek Slave, by Power [sic], from "Recollections of the Great Exhibition, 1851"
John Absolon
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
At the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations, held in London in 1851, displays of art and manufacture were shown at the Crystal Palace, a specially built glass and iron building designed by Joseph Paxton and erected in Hyde Park. Between May and October more than six million visitors flocked to view thousands of objects organized by theme and place of origin at this first world’s fair. This lithograph of the American Court centers on Hiram Powers’s Greek Slave (1841–43), a marble sculpture of a nude young woman in a Turkish slave market. By inference, it was seen as a poignant commentary on the slavery still being practiced in the southern United States. Behind a red curtained niche that accentuates the work’s pure whiteness, figures in Native American dress offer a glimpse of the West, while manufactured objects at right include a group of clocks. Publishers Lloyd Brothers teamed with lithographers Day & Son to create the hand-colored set to which the print belongs, the whole offering well-to-do visitors a detailed and beautifully produced souvenir.
Drawings and Prints
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
![View in the East Nave; The Greek Slave, by Power [sic], from "Recollections of the Great Exhibition, 1851"](https://cdn.unlockedmuseums.com/items/664134ef2a7025866b1580ec/1-200w.jpeg)
![View in the East Nave; The Greek Slave, by Power [sic], from "Recollections of the Great Exhibition, 1851"](https://cdn.unlockedmuseums.com/items/66435a8882709c5da4c4ec27/1-200w.jpeg)
![View in the East Nave; The Greek Slave, by Power [sic], from "Recollections of the Great Exhibition, 1851"](https://cdn.unlockedmuseums.com/items/6641f06242ee7ee368c343f3/1-200w.jpeg)
![View in the East Nave; The Greek Slave, by Power [sic], from "Recollections of the Great Exhibition, 1851"](https://cdn.unlockedmuseums.com/items/6643708e82709c5da4c4efd0/1-200w.jpeg)
![View in the East Nave; The Greek Slave, by Power [sic], from "Recollections of the Great Exhibition, 1851"](https://cdn.unlockedmuseums.com/items/66432fd182709c5da4c4e7a6/1-200w.jpeg)
The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.