Inspired by Hiram Powers’s successful Greek Slave, John Bell debuted The Octoroon at the 1868 Royal Academy exhibition. However, the mobilization of narrative that made Powers’s sculpture acceptable was not applicable for The Octoroon. Instead, racial difference made all the difference, prompting viewers to read the figure’s cold, white marble as hot, sensuous flesh. Bell’s sculpture reflects Victorian Britain’s fascination with the enslaved, American, mixed-race beauty and suggests provocative resonances between the antebellum South and the Orient in the popular imagination. The sculpture’s 1876 purchase by the cotton town of Blackburn also illuminates the octoroon’s significance as a trope in nineteenth-century British culture.

中文翻译：

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大理石中的种族灭绝：约翰·贝尔的八度

受希拉姆·鲍尔斯（Hiram Powers）成功的希腊奴隶制的启发，约翰·贝尔（John Bell）在1868年的皇家学院展览会上首次亮相了《八方通》。但是，使Powers的雕塑可以接受的叙事动员不适用于The Octoroon。取而代之的是，种族差异造成了所有差异，促使观众将人物的冷白色大理石读为炽热的肉体。贝尔的雕塑反映了维多利亚时代英国人对奴役的美国混合种族美的迷恋，并在流行的想象中暗示了南前战区和东方之间的挑衅性共鸣。1876年，棉花小镇布莱克本（Blackburn）购买了这件雕塑，也彰显了八角形作为19世纪英国文化中的轻型单簧管的重要性。