Artist Mannequin
Artist
Unknown
(English)
Date1850-1880
OriginProbably France
MediumWood
Dimensions32 in. (81.3 cm)
ClassificationsDoll
Credit LineCarolyn K. and Richard F. Barry III Art Purchase Fund
Object number2018.6
Label TextUnknown Maker, (Probably French, 19th century)
Artist Mannequin
Carved and assembled hardwood, about 1850-1860
Gift of Carolyn K. and Richard F. Barry, III
Models of the human body with articulated joints were called laymen, lay figures, or mannequins. They have been useful devices for artists working in a studio without a model since the Renaissance, although they may have had their origins in the articulated dolls of Ancient Greece and Rome. Trade catalogs of artist suppliers illustrate these modifiable models as early as the 1700s. Ranging from life-size to small scale, they mostly served for the study of clothed human figures. This example is half-sized, with drill holes around the forehead to attach a wig. Similarly constructed, full-size wooden models were used by dress-makers to present the latest designs to their customers, before the first life models were employed by the fashion ateliers in Paris in the second half of the 19th century. This artist mannequin illustrates the influence such figures had on the development of dolls with articulated limbs and the automata in the Barry collection. Its jointed construction inspired the wooden poupée (doll) body patented by Leon Casimir Bru in 1867 (on view in this gallery).
Status
Not on view
