Half Model of a Schooner

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

ObjectNumber: NG-MC-1356

Polychromed wooden bracket model of the starboard side of a two-masted vessel, mounted on a rectangular black, wooden backboard.

The side of the ship is depicted by ribbands attached to frame moulds. Above the wale the side is planked. A black rail on stanchions is fitted along the entire length of the ship. The deck is detailed with deckhouses, companionways and hatches, knightheads and a windlass. On the gunwale six oarlocks are depicted. The bow features a black knee, decorated with the head of a crocodile, which supports the bowsprit, and a curved stem coming up to the vertical. The stern has a round tuck, a hollow counter rising as far as the small poop and a closed taffrail. The sternpost is raked considerably and is fitted with a straight, square-headed rudder with a hand tiller. The sheer rises towards both ends, steeply towards the stern. One wale and a sheer rail are indicated. The hull is S-bottomed and painted white below the waterline. The keel is not straight, but rises slightly at both ends. The position of two masts and the bowsprit is shown in a truncated form. The mainmast is raked considerably, the foremast is almost vertical.

The model is described in the inventory list simply as that ‘of a ship from the past’.¹¹‘Halfmodel van een schip uit vroeger tijd’, see J.M. Obreen et al., handwritten inventory list for items 944 to 1431, 1884, manuscript in HNA 476 RMA, inv. no. 1089, no. 1356. The shape of the hull points towards a schooner and the crocodile figurehead might even identify the model as that of the 7-gun schooner Krokodil, built in Amsterdam in 1799, which was sold out of the service in Nieuwediep in 1823.²²A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 32.

Scale (on model) approx. 1:16.

J.M. Obreen et al., handwritten inventory list for items 944 to 1431, 1884, manuscript in HNA 476 RMA, inv. no. 1089, no. 1356; Catalogus Rijksmuseum Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1928, no. 247 (incorrect description)

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Half Model of a Schooner, Netherlands, c. 1799', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.245161