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

Object number: NG-MC-348

Polychromed fully planked wooden half bracket model of the starboard side of a three-masted ship, mounted on a rectangular wooden backboard painted white.

The side of the ship is fully planked over frame moulds and is painted black, with a white band running along the full length of the main gun deck. Sixteen recessed gun ports are indicated in two tiers. The extent of the forecastle and quarterdeck is only suggested by their gun ports, as the waist is closed by a bulwark. The sheer is flat. One wale and two sheer rails are indicated. The bow features a fully detailed beakhead with a floral scroll as a billethead, painted gold. The cathead is missing. The elliptical stern has a taffrail and a single-storey quarter gallery; both are ornamented with carvings, painted gold. The taffrail bears the coat of arms of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Below the stern a round-headed rudder is indicated; the blade is rounded at the bottom. The hull is sharply S-bottomed and painted a metallic copper below the waterline. The position of three masts and the bowsprit is shown in a truncated form.

This model was added to the Navy Model Room in 1847. It represents the 26-gun sloop of war Sumatra, 39 metres long, built by Cornelis Jan Glavimans (1796-1857) in Rotterdam from 1843 to 1848. Sumatra was a Dutch prototype based on a British design by Commander William Symonds (1782-1856) and Surveyor of the Navy from 1832 onwards, but which proved to be a disappointment. In the end only a few Dutch ships were built after Symonds’s design principles. The Sumatra is not mentioned again after 1855.¹¹A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 20.

Scale (according to Obreen)²²J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 348.: 1:40.

J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 348; A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 20; A. van Dijk, Voor Pampus. De ontwikkeling van de scheepsbouw bij de Koninklijke Marine omstreeks 1860, Amsterdam/The Hague 1987 (Bijdragen tot de Nederlandse Marinegeschiedenis, vol. 4), p. 18

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Half Model of a 26-Gun Sloop of War, Rotterdam, c. 1843', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20053661