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

Object number: NG-MC-429

Fully planked frame half model of the starboard side of a vessel, mounted on a rectangular wooden backboard.

The side of the ship is planked on frames with most of the planks below the waterline left out to show the detailed interior. In the hold are two large fire chests connected by a trough that is suspended from the deck beams and branches out to two apertures in the hold, just below the lower wale. Seven pear-shaped objects, representing bags with flammable liquid, hang from the deck beams. The stempost is curved. The sheer rises towards both ends. Two wales and a sheer rail are indicated. One port (most likely used as an escape hatch) is cut into the round stern. The sternpost is straight. The shape of the hull is that of a hooker, round and flat-bottomed. The position of a single mast is shown in a truncated form.

This model is practically identical to model NG-MC-428, but in his catalogue, Obreen refers to number 427 instead. As the models have a slightly different style of presentation, he might have referred to the similar building date of 1795.¹¹J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, nos. 427-429.

Scale unknown.

J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, nos. 427-429; P. Kirsch, Fireship: The Terror Weapon of the Age of Sail, Barnsley 2009; A.J. Hoving, Message in a Model: Stories from the Navy Model Room of the Rijksmuseum, Florence, OR 2013, pp. 104-07

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Half Model of a Fireship, Netherlands, c. 1790 - c. 1800', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20053733