Object data
wood and paint
height 28.5 cm × width 100 cm × depth 9.3 cm
Rijkswerf Amsterdam
Half Model of an Ironclad Ram Ship
Amsterdam, c. 1870 - c. 1874
Inscriptions
- label, top right: former inventory label
- mark, on the back: various marks in pencil
Provenance
...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883
Object number: NG-MC-1404
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Polychromed wooden ‘bread-and-butter’ style half block model of the starboard side of an ironclad ram ship, mounted on a rectangular wooden backboard that has been painted white.
The side above the waterline is painted a matte black. The model features a ram bow and a cruiser stern. Below the stern a rudder with a rounded blade and a shaft of one of the two propellers (the propeller itself is missing) are indicated. On the main deck two gun turrets and three raked masts are depicted. The sheer is completely flat. The hull is round at the bilges with an almost flat bottom and has been left unpainted below the waterline, exposing its ‘bread-and-butter’ style planking. The waterline is marked with pencil on the backboard.
The pencil marks on the backboard indicate a larger rudder.
The ram ship Koning der Nederlanden, measuring 81.78 metres in length and armed with four 28-cm guns and four 12-cm guns, was built at the Navy dockyard in Amsterdam from 1871 to 1874. The ship’s construction with transverse bulkheads and longitudinal frames was exceptional. Koning der Nederlanden served in the Dutch East Indies only. In 1895 the ram ship was decommissioned and converted to a guard ship in Surabaya. It was deliberately set on fire and sunk by Navy personnel in 1942.1
Scale unknown.
Literature
B.J. Tideman, Memoriaal van de Marine, bevattende opgaven betrekkelijk de afmetingen, constructie, ... van Nederlandsche oorlogsschepen en omtrent enige havens, dokken, sluizen, werven enz., Amsterdam 1876-80, livret E; J.M. Obreen et al., handwritten inventory list for items 944 to 1431, 1884, manuscript in HNA 476 RMA, inv. no. 1089, no. 1404; S. de H., ‘De eerste Nederlandsche pantserschepen’, Ons Zeewezen 30 (1931), pp. 347-50; A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 92
Citation
J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'Rijkswerf Amsterdam, Half Model of an Ironclad Ram Ship, Amsterdam, c. 1870 - c. 1874', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.245208
(accessed 30 April 2024 13:27:10).