A 19th-century London artists’ supplier named Charles Roberson offered imitation human beings for sale or rent, with papier-mâché heads, soft leather skin and flexible, jointed limbs. The top-of-the-range article — described in Roberson’s catalogue as ‘Parisian stuffed’ — was pricey. Nonetheless, painters often felt they just had to have one whatever the cost.
Many such creatures inhabit Silent Partners: Artist & Mannequin from Function to Fetish, a pioneering exhibition at the Fitz-william Museum, Cambridge. There are also distinguished paintings on view. But it is the figures themselves — slightly comic, a touch eerie, hard to classify — that are the real stars of the show.
The curator, Jane Munro, has highlighted a crowd of objects that have been hiding in plain view for hundreds of years. We have always known that artists used lay figures or mannequins to help them with tasks such as drawing drapery.
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