Tuesday 17 February 2015

Trusty Servant Again


 I visited Winchester College to put one of my figurines into its new display case today. It is going to live in one of the libraries there, under an 1800's scientific bell jar. The Trusty Servant is an invented character specific to Winchester College, and a kind of mascot for the college. one of the paintings of the Trusty Servant at the college dates to the 1580s. The College collects images and objects relating to the Trusty Servant for their archives. My figurine is in the company of some amazing books in the library.


Hookes Micrographia

I have been working on a figurine of Robert Hooke, who was a natural philosopher, architect and polymath. He was born in 1635, and wrote Micrographia, which has some beautiful illustrations of things Hooke observed through his microscope. Published in September 1665, it was the first scientific best-seller, inspiring a wide public interest in the new science of microscopy. I visited Winchester College today and got to see this book first hand.

In my figurine I have illustrated Hooke examining a flea through his microscope, which was inspired by one of the beautiful printed plates I saw today. The prints are on a surprisingly large scale.






















These are details of his Flea and Louse plates from the book.