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

Object number: NG-MC-1383

Polychromed wooden ‘bread-and-butter’ style half model of the starboard side of a three-masted screw steamer, mounted on a rectangular wooden backboard with a stand that has been painted white.

Six large and two smaller gun ports are indicated on the black-painted side of the model. The deck is closed and features two black funnels. The clipper bow once featured a decorative scroll as a billethead; its outline is still visible. Below the elliptical stern an aperture for a four-blade, Mangin-type screw propeller and lifting frame are indicated, as well as a rudder with a rounded blade. The sheer is virtually flat. The hull is round with a bilge keel and painted a metallic silver colour. The position of three masts and the bowsprit is shown in a truncated form. The masts and funnel are all raked considerably. All masts are missing but their outline is still visible.

The gun ports for the bow chaser and stern chaser, indented to allow for a maximum field of fire, are this model’s notable features.

The 80-metre First Rate screw steamer Atjeh, designed by Bruno Johannes Tideman (1834-1883), was built from 1875 to 1876 in Amsterdam. Atjeh was made of iron with wooden planking. The engines were provided by the Koninklijke Fabriek van Stoom en Andere Werktuigen in Amsterdam. The screw steamer carried six 17-cm guns and four 12-cm guns. It was rigged with a flush frigate rig and had telescopic funnels that could be lowered during sailing to reduce drag. Atjeh represented a new class of screw steamers, the so-called Atjeh class. Other vessels belonging to the same class were Tromp, Koningin Emma der Nederlanden, De Ruyter, Van Speyk and Johan Willem Friso. Atjeh made several trips to the Dutch East Indies and visited the Universal Exposition in Melbourne in 1880. The vessel was finally decommissioned in 1922.¹¹A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 59.

Scale (on model) 1:50.

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 A; J.M. Obreen et al., handwritten inventory list for items 944 to 1431, 1884, manuscript in HNA 476 RMA, inv. no. 1089, no. 1383; A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 59; J.M. Dirkzwager, Dr. B.J. Tideman (1834-1883). Grondlegger van de moderne scheepsbouw in Nederland, Leiden 1970

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'Rijkswerf Amsterdam, Half Model of a Screw Steamer, Amsterdam, c. 1875 - c. 1878', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20054254