| RefNo | S/0078 |
| Level | Item |
| Title | Sculpture of Boole, George |
| Artist | Dufort, Antony |
| Rapacz Dufort, Dorota |
| Date | 2022-2023 |
| Description | Full figure statuette of Boole, standing with right hand extended forward holding a piece of chalk and left hand behind his back clasping a book with the title 'Logic'. The chalk is reference to Boole's lifelong career as a teacher, culminating in his becoming the first professor of mathematics at Queen's College, Cork. The book evokes his great work 'The Mathematical Analysis of Logic' (1847); a foundational work on algebraic or 'Boolean' logic which paved the way for binary computational logic.
Boole is depicted as a young man in typical Victorian dress of full-length trousers, shirt and waistcoat with a double-breasted frock coat (unbuttoned).
The likeness is based on the only known photograph of Boole, taken before 1844, which is in the collection of Sir Geoffrey Taylor, Boole's descendant and the basis of most other known likensses. The stern expression Boole adopts in the photograph has been made more genial for the sculpture.
Mounted on a wooden base with two brass, engraved plaque recording subject, sculptor and donor. |
| ObjectName | Sculpture |
| Materials | Bronze on wooden base |
| Dimensions | Figure (excluding base): 724mm (h) 250mm (w) 362mm (d)
Base: 60mm (h) 245mm (w) 224 mm (d) |
| Notes | The statuette was created by the scuptor Antony Dufort FRSS, after his own life-size multi-figure memorial to George Boole. Dufort employed a scan of the original full-size bronze figure of Boole to produce this smaller version. The statuette moulds were finished by Dorota Rapacz Dufort, sculptor and wife of Antony. The casting of the statuette was done in January 2023. |
| AccessStatus | Open |
| Copyright | Copyright is owned by the artist Antony Dufort who has given permission for non-commercial use of images of the work to the Royal Society. |
| Provenance | A gift to the Royal Society from Malcolm Smith of Loncoln, Trustee of the Heslam Trust, which commissioned the George Boole memorial installed at Lincoln railway station in 2022. |
| RelatedMaterial | Colour photographs of statuette and full-sized memorial in acquisition file along with the original design proposal submitted by the artist for the Heslam Trust commission. |
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Fellows associated with this archive
| Code | PersonName | Dates |
| NA6589 | Boole; George (1815 - 1864); mathematician | 1815 - 1864 |