Model of a 24-Pounder Gun on a Carriage and Slide

...; collection Jochem Pietersz Asmus (1765-1837), Amsterdam, 1807;¹¹HNA 2.01.29.02 Dept. Marine, Aanhangsel I, inv. no. 20, La. H no. 28. Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, 1837;²²After the death of Asmus in 1837 models from his private collection remained in the Navy Model Room in The Hague and were henceforth considered an integral part of the collection of the Department of the Navy. transferred to the museum, 1883

ObjectNumber: NG-MC-769

Model of a 24-pounder gun on a carriage for a coastal battery.

The barrel is 57 cm long and has a 33 mm calibre. Written inscriptions are engraved on the barrel, along with crossed anchors and palm branches. The carriage has two parallel cheeks with four steps and a semi-ellipsoidal cutaway below, held together by the transom and the stool bed. The fore axletree is attached to the cheeks with braces. The model has double wooden fore trucks. The model has no regular hind axletree nor hind trucks: the cheeks have a round cutaway for an axle with levers and a cam underneath the stool bed, to lift the rear of the carriage. The carriage stands on a slide, which is a frame with a fighting bolt forward and a jack in the middle for traversing.

The barrel is one of a series with the same type of inscription. The monogram on the barrel refers to the Admiralty of Rotterdam (Maze), which, however, no longer existed in 1800.

As with models NG-MC-765 and NG-MC-770 the scale is somewhat problematic: the correct calibre for a model with a scale of 1:6 should be 25 mm (as with NG-MC-773). The carriage was either given to Jochem Pietersz Asmus (1755-1837) on his visit to the office of Marc-René Marquis de Montalembert (1714-1800) in 1797,³³J.P. Asmus, Rapport van een reize naar de Fransche zeehavens aan den Oceaan in den jaar 1797, op ordre van het Bataafsche Gouvernement-Verzameling van differente stukken gedurende de reize naar de Fransche zeehavens in den Oceaan in den jaare 1797, 2 vols., s.l. 1797-1801, manuscript in HNA 2.01.29.01 Dept. Marine, inv. no. 451-18, vol. 2, pp. 125-26. or he had the model made from notes he took during that visit: he mentions it as being part of his private collection and stored in the model collection of the Amsterdam Navy dockyard in 1807.⁴⁴HNA 2.01.29.02 Dept. Marine, Aanhangsel I, inv. no. 20, La. H no. 28. The barrel was probably added later: its weight is not in accord with the carriage. The carriage is almost identical to that of number 770, except for the braces securing the fore axletrees and the composition of the trucks. The slide and hind axletree were found separated from the carriage and the reunion is a matter of conjecture.

Scale (on model) 1:6.

J.P. Asmus, Rapport van een reize naar de Fransche zeehavens aan den Oceaan in den jaar 1797, op ordre van het Bataafsche Gouvernement-Verzameling van differente stukken gedurende de reize naar de Fransche zeehavens in den Oceaan in den jaare 1797, 2 vols., s.l. 1797-1801, manuscript in HNA 2.01.29.01 Dept. Marine, inv. no. 451-18, vol. 2, pp. 125-26; J.N. Calten, Leiddraad bij het onderrigt in de zee-artillerie, Delft 1832, p. 95, pl. III, fig. 3; J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 769

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous or anonymous, Model of a 24-Pounder Gun on a Carriage and Slide, France, 1797 - 1800', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.244583