Powers was profoundly touched by this noble offer, and accepted it as frankly as it had been made.  He sent his models to Italy, and took his departure for the Old World in 1837.  Speaking of Mr. Preston’s generosity, he said, two years ago:  “I have endeavored to requite his kindness by sending him works of mine, equal in money value to his gifts; but I can never extinguish my great obligations.  I fear he don’t like me since the war,—­for I could not suppress my strong national feelings for any man’s friendship,—­but I like and honor him; I would do any thing in my power to show him my inextinguishable gratitude.”

He reached Florence in advance of his models, and while waiting for them made two busts, one of a professor in Harvard College, and the other of an American lady.  A severe domestic affliction, however, which came upon him soon after his arrival in Italy, affected him so greatly that he was not able to return to his work for a long time.  Then he applied himself to his busts, which were warmly praised by the artists in Florence and by his countrymen traveling abroad.  Thorwaldsen visited him in his studio, and pronounced his bust of Webster the best work of its kind in modern times, and praises from other distinguished artists were equally as warm.  Orders came in rapidly from English and Italians, and from Americans in Europe, and the sculptor soon had as much business as he could attend to.  He gave his leisure time to work on an ideal figure, which, when completed, was purchased by an English gentleman of wealth.  This was “The Greek Slave,” the most popular of all his works.  Duplicates of it were exhibited in America and at the Crystal Palace in England, and won him praise from all quarters.  This single work established his fame as an artist, and brought him orders from all parts of the civilized world.  His statue of “Eve,” which had preceded “The Greek Slave” by a year, had been pronounced by Thorwaldsen fit to be any man’s master-piece, but it had not created such a furore as “The Greek Slave.”  Subsequently he made an exquisite bust of the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, with which the Grand Duke was so pleased that he called on Powers, and asked him as a favor to himself to apply to him whenever he could do him a service.  Powers asked permission to take a cast of the Venus, and this much-coveted boon, which had been denied to other artists for years, was at once granted to him.

Since then his works have been numerous.  Among these are “The Fisher Boy,” of which three duplicates in marble have been made; “Il Penseroso;” “Proserpine,” a bust; “California;” “America,” modeled for the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, England; “Washington” and “Calhoun,” portrait statues, the former for the State of Louisiana, and the latter for the State of South Carolina; and “Benjamin Franklin” and “Thomas Jefferson,” in the Capitol at Washington.  His works are all marked by beauty and vigor of conception as well as by exquisite finish.