Object data
wood, brass, iron, lead, glass, paper and sealing wax
height 45.5 cm × width 33.2 cm × depth 32 cm
Rasmus Dekker
Sun Compass
Amsterdam, 1809
Inscriptions
- inscription, inside the box, in pencil: 1809
Provenance
...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883
Object number: NG-MC-871
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Compass in gimbals in a wooden box with handles.
The square wooden compass bowl is weighted with lead inside. On one of the sides a sundial is mounted. It consists of a circle divided into two times twelve hours, which can be inclined along a vertical 90 degrees arc. In the middle of the circle, a double string gnomon that can be turned is mounted, with a needle indicating the hour on the circle. The paper compass card is ornamented with animal figures and balanced with white sealing wax beneath, the bottom is a page from the Bible. It is a card made by another manufacturer whose signature has been blacked out. The compass bowl has a brass indicator for the compass card in the side opposite the sundial. It is also dated with pencil on the inside.
This compass allows the reading of the compass error by observation only, without the need for any calculation.1
Rasmus Dekker repeatedly tried to sell his inventions to the Dutch and French governments between 1791 and 1815, but was turned down on each occasion. They were tested by Hendrik Willem Lantsheer in 1810 and a number of instruments were bought for further testing in 1814, but in 1817 the Navy definitively declared Dekker’s inventions unfit for the service.
Literature
J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 871; C.A. Davids, Zeewezen en wetenschap. De wetenschap en de ontwikkeling van de navigatietechniek in Nederland tussen 1585 en 1815, Amsterdam/Dieren 1985, pp. 247-20
Citation
J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'Rasmus Dekker, Sun Compass, Amsterdam, 1809', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.244685
(accessed 24 November 2024 04:39:47).