Tondo with Portrait Profile at Albertina, Vienna

myminifactory

Between 1897 and 1911, Willy Selke, a photographer and sculptor based in Berlin, secured eight patents for replicating three-dimensional forms through sculptural methods. He developed a technique that transferred the cartographic system of contour lines to photosculpture, replacing François Willème's radial profile sections with parallel sections taken from one half of a face under various lighting conditions using a film camera. Selke captured between thirty and fifty exposures, then enlarged them on silver bromide card, cut out each section, and layered them on top of one another. He evened out the gradations by applying a modeling material and pouring gelatin solution over them. According to contemporaries' descriptions, the resulting reliefs were remarkably portrait-like. This scan originates from Oliver Laric's initiative 'threedscans'. It is part of an ongoing project titled 'Versions', which explores historical and contemporary ideas about image hierarchies. Every model created by Laric is freely downloadable and usable without copyright restrictions. If you use the models, please write to stw@myminifactory.com and contact@threedscans.com.