...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883

Object number: NG-MC-830

Model of part of a lighthouse, showing the spiral staircase inside.

The lighthouse is round, the stairs built against the wall, leaving an open column in the centre. The model is incomplete.

This is the model of the spiral staircase of the lighthouse of Haamstede on the northwest of Schouwen island, 47 metres tall, with a diameter of 11 metres tapering to 5.3 metres, designed by J. Valk and built by J.G. Palada from Vreeswijk from 1837 to 1840, with lights made by the gun founders Maritz & Zoon in The Hague. These lights were rotated by means of a clockwork mechanism, with a heavy weight descending slowly in the middle of the tower: hence the need for the hollow spiral staircase. At the bottom, a crate filled with straw was set to catch the weight in the event of rope breakage.

Scale (according to Obreen)¹¹J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 830. 1:10.

L. Valk, ‘Beschrijving van ‘s Rijks grootste kustverlichting, staande op het West-einde van het eiland Schouwen. Met 4 plaaten’, Verhandelingen en berigten betrekkelijk het zeewezen (1841), pp. 768-90; J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 830; L. Crommelin and H. van Suchtelen, Nederlandse vuurtorens. Bouw en organisatie, Nieuwkoop 1978, pp. 59-66, 76, 119-28; R. van der Veen, Vuurtorens. Over vierboeten, lichtwachters en markante bouwwerken, Groningen/Bussum 1981, pp. 22, 54-55, 70

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'Petrus van der Loo, Model of the Spiral Staircase of a Lighthouse, Netherlands, 1834', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20053992