Cheverton demonstrated his reducing machine at the Great Exhibition in 1851 and won a gold medal for his copy of Theseus from the Elgin collection in the British Museum.
The reducing machine provided the technical means of allowing sculptures to be replicated in parian ware by Minton's and other pottery manufacturers or in materials such as alabaster and ivory.
In sculpture, a three-dimensional version of the pantograph was used,[3] usually a large boom connected to a fixed point at one end, bearing two rotating pointing needles at arbitrary points along this boom. By adjusting the needles different enlargement or reduction ratios can be achieved. This device, now largely overtaken by computer guided router systems that scan a model and can produce it in a variety of materials and in any desired size,[4] was first invented by inventor and steam pioneer James Watt (1736–1819) and perfected by Benjamin Cheverton (1796–1876) in 1836. Cheverton's machine was fitted with a rotating cutting bit to carve reduced versions of well-known sculptures.[5] Of course a three-dimensional pantograph can also be used to enlarge sculpture by interchanging the position of the model and the copy.[6][7]
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