Parian ware, introduced in the 1840s, had become a strong area for Mintons, whose catalogue of 1852 already offered 226 figures in it, priced from an extremely modest two shillings for a dog, to six guineas for a classical figure. In that decade partly-tinted Parian figures were introduced, and part-gilded ones. Copies of contemporary sculptures that had been hits at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition or elsewhere were produced at a much-reduced scale in Parian. The American sculptor Hiram Powers' hit sculpture "The Greek Slave" was first made in 1843 in Florence, and by the end of the decade some of the five life-size versions he made had toured several countries. Mintons first made a copy in 1848; by the version illustrated here, from 1849, the figure had lost the heavy chains between her hands, which were perhaps too expensive to make for a popular product.