The secret world of the artist’s mannequin

Silent Partners: Artist & Mannequin from Function to Fetish

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, until 25 January

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.

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TaggedAlan Beeton, Chapman brothers, Courbet, Dali, De Chirico, Fitzwilliam Museum, Gainsborough, Hogarth, Holman Hunt, Kokoschka, lay-figures, mannequin, painters, Poussin, Sickert, visual art

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The secret world of the artist's mannequin

A pioneering show at the Fitzwilliam Museum unearths the ubiquity of mannequins in helping artists work out composition - and avoid working with 'filthy street urchins'

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