Bory Jenő’s bust of Szily Kálmán commemorates one of the versatile figures of Hungarian scholarship. The portrait evokes a scholar who played a significant role in the intellectual life at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a physicist, mathematician, linguist and organiser of science alike.
Nagyszigethy Szily Kálmán (1838–1924) was a physicist, linguist, professor at the Technical University, secretary-general and later chief librarian of the Magyar Tudományos Akadémia. His career was closely connected with the Budapesti Műegyetem, where he first worked as a professor and subsequently headed departments in experimental physics and in mathematics and physics. He later served as dean and then rector. His scientific interests were exceptionally broad. Alongside technical, mathematical and physical sciences, his work extended to linguistics. He played an outstanding role in the popularisation of natural science and founded both the Természettudományi Közlöny and the Természettudományi Könyvkiadó Vállalat. The Magyar Tudományos Akadémia elected him a corresponding member in 1865 and a full member in 1873. He later served six years as the Academy’s secretary-general and played a significant role in organising Hungarian scientific life.
Bory Jenő made the portrait in 1914 for the series of portraits of scientists in the entrance hall of the Budapesti Műegyetem. Of particular interest is that the sculpture was made during Szily Kálmán’s lifetime, approximately ten years before his death. The bust depicts the scholar in mature age, with restrained dignity and a concentrated gaze. Bory strove not only for a likeness in the facial features, but also to convey the professor’s intellectual authority and scholarly disposition. The work is made of the material known as pyrobasalt, often also called “Bory bronze”. As part of the university’s gallery of scientists, it remains an important memorial to the institution’s history and scientific traditions.