Half Model of an Ironclad Monitor

...; Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, 1866;¹¹J.M. Obreen et al., handwritten inventory list for items 944 to 1431, 1884, no. 1217, manuscript in NHA 476, inv. no. 1089. transferred to the museum, 1883

ObjectNumber: NG-MC-1217

Wooden ‘bread-and-butter’ style half model of the starboard side of an ironclad monitor, mounted on a rectangular wooden backboard.

The model features a vertical stem, a sharp cruiser stern cut off at the waterline with a vertical side above it. Below the stern a rudder with a square blade is indicated. On the main deck four small, narrow deckhouses aft of the turret are depicted, connected by a gangway, as well as two deckhouses forward, all painted black. A funnel protrudes from the top of the deckhouse aft of the turret. The sheer is completely flat. The hull is flat-bottomed.

This model was presented to the Secretary of the Navy between 1865 and 1866 by the Napier Company of Glasgow, together with a similar model of an ironclad ram ship,²²Model NG-MC-1215. as designs for the first generation of ironclads to be delivered to the Dutch Navy.

Napier built the monitor Tijger, measuring 57 metres in length and armed with two 23-cm guns, for the Dutch Navy from 1867 to 1868. The shape of the hull, which had an armoured belt on the outside, is similar to this model, although the deckhouses are different. In 1887 the armament was changed to one 28-cm gun, one 7.5-cm gun, two 3.7-cm guns and two 3.7-cm revolving guns. Tijger was decommissioned in 1895 and sold for breaking up the following year.³³A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, pp. 109-10.

B.J. Tideman, Memoriaal van de Marine, bevattende opgaven betrekkelijk de afmetingen, constructie, ... van Nederlandsche oorlogsschepen en omtrent enige havens, dokken, sluizen, werven enz., Amsterdam 1876-80, livret H; J.M. Obreen et al., handwritten inventory list for items 944 to 1431, 1884, manuscript in HNA 476 RMA, inv. no. 1089, no. 1217; A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, pp. 109-10; S. de H., ‘De eerste Nederlandsche pantserschepen’, Ons Zeewezen 30 (1931), pp. 420-26; J.M. Dirkzwager, ‘De introductie van pantserschepen in Nederland’, Tijdschrift voor Zeegeschiedenis 4 (1985), no. 1, pp. 23-41, esp. pp. 35-37

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'R. Napier & Sons, Half Model of an Ironclad Monitor, Glasgow, c. 1865 - c. 1866', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.245030