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

Object number: NG-MC-974

Polychromed wooden half block model of the port side of a single-masted flat-bottomed yacht, mounted on a rectangular wooden backboard.

The model has one deck with a cabin aft and a poop over the cabin. There are four small circular gun ports forward, the planking has fittings for a leeboard and four chainplates. On deck a windlass, a chimney and several hatches are indicated. The bow features a beakhead with a carved figurehead of a rampant lion, a carving of a dolphin and a black cathead. The stern has a square tuck with one gun port in the transom and a hollow counter with foliage. The taffrail is decorated with carvings of putti, trophies and a crowned coat of arms with a lion holding a sword and a bundle of arrows. The quarter figure is a carving of a seated woman with a shield and the quarter badge is decorated with three lights surrounded by carvings of foliage, all painted yellow. Below the stern a broad rudder is depicted, with the tiller reaching below the floor of the cabin. The sheer rises towards both ends. One wale and a sheer rail are indicated, painted black. The hull is flat-bottomed and painted white below the waterline. The position of a single mast is shown in a truncated form.

The model was found without inventory number and has been identified by means of a process of elimination.

Scale unknown.

J.M. Obreen et al., handwritten inventory list for items 944 to 1431, 1884, manuscript in HNA 476 RMA, inv. no. 1089, no. 974; E.W. Petrejus, Oude zeilschepen en hun modellen, Bussum 1971, pp. 122-35; W. Lippits, ‘Miniatuurjachten’, Scheepshistorie 14 (2012), pp. 106-21

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Half Model of an Admiralty Yacht, Netherlands, c. 1730 - c. 1795', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20054047