.... Marochetti‘s figure was sited at the end of the building which was reserved for products of British industry. Inside the building at this end, in the gallery devoted to the display of philosophical instruments, was another figure that attracted some attention, the Lay Figure or Expanding Model Of A Man designed by the Polish exile and inventor Count Dunin, a medal-winner in the category of Philosophical Instruments and their dependent processes (see fig. 3). The Expanding Model was described by the Illustrated London News as ‗a most singular mechanical invention […] a marvel of human ingenuity‘.15 Details of the invention were given in the official catalogue where it was listed as a ‗Piece of mechanism designed to illustrate the different proportions of the human figure: it admits of being expanded from the size of the Apollo Belvedere to that of a colossal statue‘. It was explained ‗this invention could be made applicable in the artist‘s studio‘ (in other words as a lay figure to present the pose of any figure); but the catalogue entry went on, ‗its more immediate object is to facilitate the exact fitting of garments, more especially in cases where great numbers are to be provided for, as in the equipment of an army or providing clothing for a distant colony‘.16 The contraption allowed the total armed contingent to be described and acknowledged, this one metal body contained them all, in all their peculiarities or deformities, from a less developed, five-foot specimen to a giant of six foot eight inches.17 Count Dunin envisaged a tailor‘s shop with three or four of these mannequins producing perfectly fitting uniforms for ‗several hundred thousand men‘ without personal attendance. In a democratic age the vocabulary of the heroic had to become inclusive and this Expanding Man could admit the deformity of the individual as well as presenting the antique ideal. .....
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