Object data
wood and brass
height 12.8 cm × width 47.5 cm × depth 23.1 cm
anonymous
Model of Two Different Designs for the Gun Position on the Bow
Netherlands, c. 1840 - c. 1850
Inscriptions
- label, on the side: 89 former inventory label
Provenance
...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883
Object number: NG-MC-89
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Schematic block model and waterline model of a foreship with a pivot shell gun on a slide. It has a beakhead, the bowsprit and catheads are missing, and there is a windlass to the rear. The gun pivots on circular brass tracks inlaid in the deck: on a large circle in the middle and on two small circles to both sides of the bow. Faint scratch marks in the deck and nails indicate alternate tracks. Hawseholes are indicated in the bow with black paint. They are below decks and the chains or trusses are to be led to the windlass on deck through tubes. A black rectangle on deck probably indicates the place where they come up.
This model originally showed two versions of the gun position for the 6-gun paddle steamer Suriname (40.5 metres long, built at the Nederlandsche Stoomboot Maatschappij Fijenoord in Rotterdam from 1845 to 1846).1 The second gun position is missing. It enabled the gun to fire straight forward without hitting the bowsprit, which was replaced by a trestle, the gun firing between its legs.2
Literature
J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 89; A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 47
Citation
J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Model of Two Different Designs for the Gun Position on the Bow, Netherlands, c. 1840 - c. 1850', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.242814
(accessed 27 April 2024 12:22:07).