Model of a Boyer

...; Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, 1817;¹¹HNA 2.12.01 Min. Marine, Exh. 3/6/1817 N11. transferred to the museum, 1883

ObjectNumber: NG-MC-675

Rigged wooden frame model of a single-masted, flat-bottomed vessel, mounted on a stand.

The model has one deck and a cabin, of which parts can be removed. The cabin is completely panelled inside and has a deck light on top. The cockpit has benches in the sides and a small afterdeck. The bow is round and decorated with suns and scrolls, the stem is coppered. The round stern is carved with foliage and floral scrolls and has a raking sternpost. A broad rudder with decorated rudder head and wooden tiller is indicated. The sheer rises towards both ends, the wale is coppered. The model has leeboards. The frames have three parts, the construction in the bow is different. The vessel has clinker planking above the waterline, but is carvel-planked underneath it. The rigging consists of a mast with a bent top, a gaff and a boom, and a bowsprit; the mast can be lowered. There is a deck horse for the main sheet on the afterdeck.

In 1815, Pieter Schuijt Juniorsz (1797-1885) built a boyer in the Navy dockyard in Amsterdam, which was presented by King William I to Czar Alexander I of Russia; it was transported to Saint Petersburg that following year on board the flute ship De Kroonprins der Neederlanden. On the mast shield, now missing, it had the Russian eagle.

The model, which was transferred to the Navy Model Room in 1817,²²HNA 2.12.01 Min. Marine, Exh. 3/6/1817 N11, 7/7/1817 N6. was exhibited in London at the International Ship Model Exhibition of 1882.³³Catalogue of the International Ship Model Exhibition, exh. cat. London (?) 1882, no. 179. An identical model, but of a different scale, is in the collection of Het Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam.⁴⁴Amsterdam, Het Scheepvaartmuseum, inv. no. S.0897.

Scale unknown.

J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 675; Catalogue of the International Ship Model Exhibition, exh. cat. London [?] 1882, no. 179; J.C.M. Warnsinck, De Kweekschool voor de Zeevaart en de Stuurmanskunst, Amsterdam 1935; A. de Vos, De overnaadse boeier, s.l. 2014, manuscript in RMA, folder NG-MC-675

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'Rijkswerf Amsterdam, Model of a Boyer, Amsterdam, c. 1817', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.244490