Model of a Galley

Entry

Polychromed and rigged wooden frame model of a galley with sail, mounted on a stand.

The galley has a beakhead platform, a covered foredeck with a raised gun slide with one gun, a wing on both sides with seventeen thwarts each, amidships two narrow superimposed decks, and a cabin covered by a poop. At the bow it has a falling stem and a low beakhead with a pointed ram at the end. The round stern has a curved sternpost, a hollow protruding counter and a single-storey taffrail with a sternwalk decorated with gilt carvings. The curved rudder with a square head remains outside the counter and has a metal tiller. The sheer rises towards both ends, the model has one wale. The hull is S-bottomed and is painted white below the waterline. The model is fitted with one anchor, thirty-four oars and a large awning that hangs from the main lateen yard and supported by eighteen pillars. It is rigged without sails with a foremast and mainmast, each with a lateen yard. A Dutch tricolour flies from the mainmast.

Jochem Pietersz Asmus (1755-1837) bought this model for his private collection at some time before 1807.³ Obreen’s assertion that a galley after this model was built in Amsterdam for Tsar Peter the Great of Russia for use on the Volga river and the Caspian Sea,⁴ has been argued both by Köster and Lehmann.⁵ The misunderstanding, according to Lehmann, originates from the 32-gun frigate named Galei, which was built for the tsar in Amsterdam in 1721. Köster claims that only the model was built for the tsar, which, because it was finished only after his death, stayed in the Netherlands. However, it is known that in 1695, Jacob van Deyl sent Jan Pieterszoon to Archangel with a galley for Tsar Peter the Great, which he had to assemble there.

Scale unknown.