Details of Sculptor

Surname

Cheverton

Alternative Surname

First Name

Benjamin

Initial of Surname

C

Year of Birth/Baptism

1796

Flourished

Year of Death

1876

Biographical Details

Although Cheverton described himself as an 'artist' he is best remembered for his miniature reproduction of the works of others. Building upon James Watt's earlier experiments, Cheverton, with the assistance of John Isaac Hawkins (1772-1855), perfected a machine that could carve sculpture to reduced dimensions. It was perfected for commercial use in 1836 (around the same time that a similar device was publicised in France by Achille Collas). In 1841 The Era reported the exhibition of 'specimens of Cheverton's beautiful mechanical sculpture' (May 16) at a conversazione held by the President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and at the same event the following year The Times (June 6, 1842) noted 'exquisite copies mechanically executed in metal and in ivory after Bertel Thorvaldsen and Francis Chantrey.' The former may have been Night and Day, examples of which are recorded in a later sale (24). He also produced a reduced version of the Clytie (or Isis) in the British Museum (20).

A version of his copying and reducing machine is in the Science Museum, London. He used the mechanism principally for producing hundreds of exquisitely detailed ivory reproductions of works, by Sir Francis Chantrey (including, appropriately the bust of James Watt (16) Joseph Nollekens, L F Roubiliac, Joseph Durham, Sir John Steell and others. He was aided by the extensive import of ivory from West Africa and Bombay. An estimate for 1830, based upon the duties recorded on imported ivory, suggested that somewhere between 3500-6000 elephants were being killed per year to supply Britain alone. His device proved important to other manufacturers, such as Copeland, who used Cheverton's process to produce small scale models for porcelain (12), and the Art Union of London, who in 1845 used Cheverton's machine to reduce John Foley's Boy at the Stream (3). The following year it was reported that Cheverton was making reductions not only in ivory but also in alabaster and marble.

In 1844, when living at Pratt Street, Camden Town, he took out a patent on 'improvements in machinery for cutting wood and other materials' (The London Journal of Arts and Sciences (and Repertory of Patent Inventions) 1844, 74). By 1850 Cheverton had also patented a process for making imitation ivory out of alabaster, gypsum or any other native sulphate of lime. The imitative value lay in the fat-based varnish that he used to coat the surface, which took a high polish. A Mr Staight took away a prize at the Great Exhibition for manufactures in Cheverton's material. Cheverton himself exhibited at the Great Exhibition and at the Paris Universal Exposition and his reductions of figures and a frieze from the Parthenon marbles, made for retail by the Arundel Society, were displayed at Sydenham (23).

Cheverton died, aged 81, in February 1876 at his home in Upper Holloway, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery. One obituary said that his repute as an artist was founded ‘particularly upon the success of his reproductions in miniature, in which he had no rival. Mr Cheverton was well versed in the physical sciences, and contributed largely in former years to the scientific periodicals (Birmingham Daily Post Thursday, February 10, 1876). Cheverton is thought to have produced several hundred miniature busts with his machine, of which only a selection is listed.

MGS

Literary References: Holtzapffel 1846, vol 1, 140; The Mechanics' Magazine, Museum, Register, Journal, and Gazette, volume 53, 1850, 516; Daily News, October 16, 1851; Daily News, Monday, April 23, 1855; Johnson 1975, 84; Silber 1987, 24, 72; Shedd 1992, 39; Insley 2013, 46-7
Archival References: GPC
Portraits of the Sculptor: Parianware bust, Science Museum inv 1924-0293