Model of a Gun and Carriage on a Ship Deck

...; collection Jochem Pietersz Asmus (1755-1837), Amsterdam, 1807;¹¹HNA 2.01.29.02 Dept. Marine, Aanhangsel I, inv. no. 20, La. H no. 8. transferred to the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, 1837;²²After the death of Asmus in 1837 models from his private collection remained in the Navy Model Room in The Hague and were henceforth considered an integral part of the collection of the Department of the Navy. transferred to the museum, 1883

ObjectNumber: NG-MC-953

Model of a gun and carriage mounted on an inclined deck with a gunwale at the lower end.

The wooden barrel is 26 cm long. The carriage, narrowing to the front, consists of two cheeks with four steps and a curved cutaway below connected by the transom, a breast piece, a cross-beam in the middle, the stool bed and a cross-beam underneath the stool bed, and the axletrees. The quoin is missing. The fore trucks are larger than the hind trucks. The ship deck has a catch to retain the carriage in a higher position by means of a hook underneath the hind axletree; the catch can slide to and fro in a cut out arc, thus altering the direction from which the carriage will roll towards the gunwale. Where the carriage hits the gunwale, the latter is reinforced with a wooden cushion block.

The barrel, carriage and ship deck were found separately and were subsequently joined because they fitted together very well. However, this reconstruction remains uncertain.

The exact purpose of this model is unclear. It probably demonstrates the behaviour of a carriage on a rolling ship. The catch is probably for demonstration purposes only. Jochem Pietersz Asmus (1755-1837) presented this model with a description to the Raad van State in 1794.³³HNA 2.01.29.02 Dept. Marine, Aanhangsel I, inv. no. 20, La. H no. 8.

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. 953

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'Jochem Pietersz. Asmus, Model of a Gun and Carriage on a Ship Deck, Amsterdam, 1796', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.244767