Object data
wood and brass
model: height 86 cm × length 141.5 cm × width 35 cm
packaging capsule: height 93 cm × width 146.5 cm × depth 40 cm
anonymous, after William May
Model of a 54-Gun Ship
Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1784
Provenance
…; 's Lands Werf (Navy dockyard) Amsterdam, 18 April 1798;1 sent to the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, October 1818;2 transferred to the museum, 1883
Object number: NG-MC-501
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Wooden construction model of the hull, bisected along its longitudinal axis, one half placed over the other, mounted on a base.
Some parts of the construction have been labelled with letters. The starboard half is fully detailed, planked and fitted with channels and deadeyes on the outside, ceiled and panelled on the inside, while the port side has only a few planks and reveals the timbering. The twenty-eight gun ports are only visible on the starboard side. The model has a total of five decks. The beakhead carries a crowned lion as its figurehead. The stern has a round tuck and a hollow counter with two chase ports, a taffrail and a two-storey quarter gallery. The sheer rises gently towards both ends, two wales and a sheer rail are indicated. The hull has a shallow S-frame.
The most important feature of the model is the frame construction, which are most visible on the port side. The frames consist of eleven parts and are reinforced with an early version of diagonal trussing: diagonally placed riders are fitted on the ceiling, running aft in the forebody and forwards in the afterbody. Another notable feature are the fashion frames, which are floating cant timbers.
Dockyard Superintendent Jochem Pietersz Asmus (1755-1837) mentions this model in a list of objects that were transferred to him by his predecessor Jan Binkes in 1798.3 It was sent from Amsterdam to the Navy Model Room in 1818.4 In 1784, William May (1725-1807) proposed this new method of reducing hogging to the Admiralty of Amsterdam.5 It was tested on the 68-gun ship Leiden, measuring 167½ feet in length and built in Amsterdam from 1785 to 1786. Leiden was under the command of Aegidius van Braam when it was captured by the British in 1799.6
Literature
A.E. Tromp, ‘Verhandeling over een geheel nieuw verband tot het tegengaan der doorzetting van schepen, uitgevonden door C. Soetermeer. Met 2 platen’, Tijdschrift toegewijd aan het zeewezen 1 (1831), pp. 139 ff. and Tijdschrift toegewijd aan het zeewezen (1832), pp. 28 ff.; J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 501; A.A. Lemmers, Het marinemodellenkamerprojekt, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1986; A.A. Lemmers, ‘Een teruggevonden ontwerp tegen de kattenrug uit de achttiende eeuw’, Spiegel Historiael 26 (1991), no. 6, pp. 306-07; A.A. Lemmers, ‘Over kruisverbanden en kippekonten’, in H. Stevens (ed.), The Art of Technology: The Navy Model Collection in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam/Wormer 1995, pp. 26-29; A.A. Lemmers, Techniek op schaal. Modellen en het technologiebeleid van de Marine 1725-1885, Amsterdam 1996, pp. 60-80; A.J. Hoving, Message in a Model: Stories from the Navy Model Room of the Rijksmuseum, Florence, OR 2013, pp. 86-89; 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
Citation
J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Model of a 54-Gun Ship, Amsterdam, 1784', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20053776
(accessed 12 December 2025 06:05:23).