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

Object number: NG-MC-306

Polychromed wooden half block model of the starboard side of a three-masted ship, mounted on a rectangular wooden backboard painted brown.

The side of the ship is fully planked on top of frame moulds. The model has three decks. Twenty-seven pierced gun ports are indicated in three tiers and eight oar ports or scuppers are situated on the lower deck. A white band runs below the gun ports of the upper deck. The sides of the forecastle and quarterdeck are painted black, the quarterdeck and poop hances are decorated with carved volutes as their hancing pieces. The sheer rises slightly towards both ends. Two wales and a sheer rail are indicated, the wales are painted black. The bow features a beakhead with a carved figurehead of a gold-painted crowned lion, the trail board between the cheeks is decorated with a dolphin, two hawseholes, a beakhead bulkhead and part of the beakhead platform, a black knighthead and an anchor lining. The stern is round and has two tall windows, the sternpost and rudder extend all the way up to the quarterdeck. The model has a straight, square-headed rudder with a silhouette of a human head. The hull is S-bottomed and painted white below the waterline. The position of three masts and the bowsprit is shown in a truncated form.

Because model NG-MC-1351. is made after the same design but dates from 1783, William May (1725-1807) first designed this 40-gun hooker frigate in 1774 but probably worked on it for another nine years. His plans were examined and rejected by a commission of naval officers in 1785.¹¹J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 306. Dockyard superintendent Jochem Pietersz Asmus (1755-1837) mentioned this model in a list of objects that were transferred from the collection of his predecessor Jan Binkes to his, in 1798.²²HNA 2.01.29.02 Dept. Marine, Aanhangsel I, inv. no. 20, La. K3.4.

Scale unknown.

J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 306; A.A. Lemmers, Techniek op schaal. Modellen en het technologiebeleid van de Marine 1725-1885, Amsterdam 1996, pp. 60-80; A.A. Lemmers, ‘Shipworm, Hogbacks and Duck’s Arses: The Influence of William May on Sir Robert Seppings’, The Mariner’s Mirror 99 (2013), no. 4, pp. 410-28

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Half Model of a 40-Gun Hooker Frigate, Amsterdam, c. 1785', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20053620