In 1859, the sculptor and photographer François Willème invented a method for the mechanical production of three-dimensional portraits, which he later patented in Paris. To create a photosculpture he took synchronized photos of his models with twenty-four cameras placed around them in a circle. The resultant profile sections were then projected, allowing the figures to be reproduced in clay on any scale using a knife attached to a pantograph. The idea was that the sum of silhouettes would produce a kind of three-dimensional photograph of the model. However, not all parts of a human figure could be recorded as a silhouette, because the internal details were missing, as were the areas between the individual profiles. The profiles therefore needed reworking by hand. Despite these limitations to mechanical photographic portraiture, Willème’s invention nonetheless drastically reduced the workload involved: two workers needed just two to four days to make a photosculpture.