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

Object number: NG-MC-302

Polychromed wooden half bracket model of the port side of a ship, mounted on a small wooden backboard.

The side of the ship is depicted by ribbands attached to frame moulds, above the wale the model is planked and highly detailed. Nineteen recessed, red gun ports are situated on the upper deck and quarterdeck, plus one in the beakhead bulkhead and another in the counter. The forecastle has a rail and an arch spanning the beakhead bulkhead. The upper side of the quarterdeck is painted blue. The hances of the forecastle and quarterdeck are decorated with carved floral bands as their hancing pieces. The sheer rises forward and aft. Two wales and the sheer rail are indicated, the wales are painted black. The model has a fore channel and a continuous main and mizzen channel, all fitted with deadeyes, links and plates. Ahead of the main channel red entering steps can be seen. The bow features a beakhead with many details, including a carved figurehead depicting a crowned, rampant red lion with yellow manes, three headrails, two cheeks enclosing a red trail board and two hawseholes, a beakhead bulkhead with steps and a gun port hatch, a beakhead platform, a cathead with a decorated knee in the shape of a herm and a bowsprit detailed with all its gammoning and two knightheads on either side. The stern has a round tuck and a hollow counter. The rounded taffrail and the single-storey quarter and stern galleries are lavishly decorated with yellow carvings of trophies, ribbons, a quarter figure shaped as a woman in a Roman battle dress with a helmet, shield and spear and an oval cartouche on a forked red ribbon. The lower finishing of the curved quarter gallery is a floral scroll. Below the stern a straight, square-headed rudder in a large, round helm port is indicated. The hull is S-bottomed and painted white below the waterline. No masts are indicated, only the bowsprit is shown in a truncated form with a ragged edge.

This model was identified by elimination only and its identification therefore remains uncertain.¹¹A. Lemmers (ed.), Maritime Technology from the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam: Multimedia Catalogue of the Dutch Navy Model Collection 1698-1889, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1995, no. 302. According to Obreen, this model represents the design of a 36-gun frigate from the year 1775.²²J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 302.

Scale unknown.

J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 302

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Half Model of a 36-Gun Frigate, Netherlands, c. 1775', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20053619