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Buberl, Caspar. Statue of Robert Fulton, 1872. Zinc, paint, lead-tin solder, plaster (repairs), height: 126 in., 2500 lb. (320 cm, 1133.99kg). Gift of the Museum of the City of New York, 2010.21. Creative Commons-BY.
This statue portrays the American engineer and inventor Robert Fulton (1765–1815) with a model of his boat the Nassau, the first steam-powered ferry to operate between Manhattan and Brooklyn.
This sculpture is cast from zinc, a gray metal, which can be seen in areas where the paint has worn away. Pieces made of zinc can be joined by soldering, because of the metal’s low melting point. Using zinc to cast a sculpture in sections was easier, faster, and less expensive than using other traditional materials, such as bronze, which required casting the sculpture in one piece.