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

Object number: NG-MC-1279

Polychromed wooden ‘bread-and-butter’ style half block model of the starboard side of an ironclad ram ship, mounted on a rectangular wooden backboard that has been painted white.

The model has a rounded ram bow and a very short bowsprit decorated with gold-painted foliage at its base. The cruiser stern has windows and is decorated with white floral carvings. Below the stern a rudder with a rounded blade, and a three-blade screw propeller with an adjustable pitch are indicated. On the flush main deck a single turret with a large circular hatch and two sights for the gunners on top are depicted. A bridge with a gangway with gratings along the deck, one black funnel and two companionways aft is positioned behind the turret. The rigging consists of one mast forward and a very short bowsprit. The sheer is completely flat. The hull is round, with a bilge keel, painted ox red below the waterline.

Matador, 59.68 metres long, after which this model was made, was a copy of the design of the Buffel, but slightly heavier, built on the Navy dockyard in Amsterdam from 1867 to 1870. It was renamed Guinea while still on the stocks. Originally armed with two 23-cm guns, the armament was changed in 1887 to one 28-cm gun, four 3.7-cm guns and two 3.7-cm revolving guns. Guinea was used for internal defence only, after which it was decommissioned in 1894. Guinea was sold for breaking up in 1897.¹¹A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, pp. 91-92.

Scale (on model) 1:40.

E. Simpson, Report on a Naval Mission to Europe: Especially Devoted to the Material and Construction of Artillery, s.l. 1873; 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 F; J.M. Obreen et al., handwritten inventory list for items 944 to 1431, 1884, manuscript in HNA 476 RMA, inv. no. 1089, no. 1279; S. de H., ‘De eerste Nederlandsche pantserschepen’, Ons Zeewezen 30 (1931), pp. 385-87; A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, pp. 91-92; 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, 'Rijkswerf Amsterdam, Half Model of an Ironclad Ram Ship, Amsterdam, c. 1867 - c. 1870', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20054212