Model of a 44-Gun Frigate at a Careening Wharf

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

ObjectNumber: NG-MC-30

Polychromed working model of a careening wharf with a careened frigate, fitted in a box.

The model shows the foundations of the quay beneath removable boards. Five out of six capstans are used to heel over the ship; the ship is prevented from capsizing by means of a careening mast. With two small wheels fixed to the stem and the back of the rudder, the ship model balances on two underfloor brass rails that range the model’s full span, beneath the boards that represent the water. The ship can thus be tilted upright by pulling two ropes at the bottom of the box that are attached to the keel. The boards representing the water have to be removed for this and refitted to match the changed position of the ship. The ship model is a block model of a 44-gun frigate with reduced rigging, the mainmast and foremast shored up for careening. It has forty-eight gun ports divided over two gun decks. The beakhead has four seats of ease, the figure is of a running woman with a vase. The model has an elliptical stern decorated with the coat of arms of the Netherlands and single-storey quarter galleries. The sheer is flat, one wale and two sheer rails are indicated. The hull is an S-bottomed. The topsides and the rigging are highly detailed.

The model was ordered by the Director of the Navy Model Room G.A. Tindal in 1837.¹¹HNA 2.12.01 Min. Marine, Exh. 28/9/1837 N44. It represents the careening wharf of Willemsoord in the early half of the nineteenth century; the ship is the IJssel (44 guns and 46.21 metres long, Rotterdam 1840, renamed Prins Frederik der Nederlanden in 1844, converted to a floating battery in 1860 and renamed Salamander, decommissioned in 1893, broken up in 1903).²²A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 11. Some details of the ship model differ from those of another model of the IJssel in the collection (see NG-MC-665).

Scale (according to Obreen)³³J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 30. 1:50.

J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 30; A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 11; F.J.G. van Emden and W. Brandt, Kleurig memoriaal van de Hollanders op Oud-Java, Amsterdam 1964, p. 152; 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. 76; A.J. Hoving, Message in a Model: Stories from the Navy Model Room of the Rijksmuseum, Florence, OR 2013, pp. 192-93

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'Cornelis over de Linden, Model of a 44-Gun Frigate at a Careening Wharf, Rijkswerf (Willemsoord), 1837 - 1842', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.242755