Object data
wood, brass, rope and paint
model: height 26.8 cm × width 92 cm × depth 37 cm
packaging capsule: height 33.5 cm × width 97 cm × depth 48.5 cm
anonymous
Model of Composite Ship Camels Bearing a Ship under Construction
? Italy, Italy, c. 1697 - c. 1718
Provenance
...; 's Lands Werf (Navy dockyard) Amsterdam, 18 April 1798;1 Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, 1837;2 transferred to the museum, 1883
Object number: NG-MC-23
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Polychromed wooden construction model of a ship supported by camels.
The ship model is a block model of a ship under construction, the upper section unfinished. It has twenty-six gun ports on one deck, a crowned lion for a figure, a round tuck, hollow counter; taffrail and quarter gallery are not finished. The ship is supported by the camels by means of short beams that go through the gun ports. The camel to starboard is composite, consisting of six linked sections. Each section has a longitudinal bulkhead, two pumps, two flooding cocks, two windlasses and two hatches, except for the aftermost section, which has two additional pumps and cocks. The camel to port consists of one piece, but is otherwise identical to the starboard one.
It is probably this model that Dockyard Superintendent Jochem Pietersz Asmus (1755-1837) mentions in a list of objects that had been transferred to him by his predecessor Jan Binkes in 1798.3 This is a composite camel, which consisted of several sections linked together. The Italian engineer Vicenzo Coronelli (1650-1718) invented this improvement of the ship’s camel after his visit to Amsterdam in 1697. The advantage of Coronelli’s camels was that one could construct hem in any size by linking separate sections.
Literature
J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 23; R.M. Haubourdin et al., De physique existentie dezes lands. Jan Blanken, inspecteur-generaal van de waterstaat (1755-1838), exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1987, no. 135; G. Boven and A. Hoving, Scheepskamelen & waterschepen. ‘Eene ellendige talmerij, doch lofflijk middel’, Zutphen 2009, pp. 35, 69
Citation
J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Model of Composite Ship Camels Bearing a Ship under Construction, Italy, c. 1697 - c. 1718', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.242748
(accessed 6 January 2025 07:24:22).