Rijksmuseum

Object data

wood, brass and copper

model: height 77.5 cm × width 127.7 cm × depth 41.5 cm
display case: height 80 cm × width 126 cm × depth 40 cm

Inscriptions

inscription, on the base: Waterdistelleertoestel / Zr Ms Stoomschip "Willem" / 1/10 Schaal

Provenance

...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883

Object number: NG-MC-1218

Copyright: Public domain

Entry

Model of a salt-water distiller for drinking water, in the cross section of a ship, mounted on a base.

At each side against the ship’s side, a condenser is placed on top of water tanks. The condensers have an inlet and an outlet going through the hull. A system of pipes leads the water to a vertical cylindrical boiler in the middle. The pipes are interrupted where they go to sections of the ship outside the model, which makes it impossible to reconstruct the exact flow of the water. The condensers are of the type developed by James Bouvery Grant (NG-MC-1108-1).

This model represents the apparatus for salt water distillation of the first class screw steamer Willem, 58 metres long, built in Amsterdam from 1861 to 1863 and decommissioned in 1874.¹

Scale (on model) 1:10.

Literature

J.M. Obreen et al., handwritten inventory list for items 944 to 1431, 1884, manuscript in HNA 476 RMA, inv. no. 1089, no. 1218; A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 57; J. Gay, ‘L’eau à bord aux XIXe et XXe siècles’, Neptunia 189 (1993), pp. 40-45; E.M. Diamond and K.T.H. Farrer, ‘Watering the Fleet and the Introduction of Distillation’, The Mariner’s Mirror 91 (2005), no. 4, pp. 548-53

Citation

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'Adriaan Rosel, Model of a Salt-Water Distiller, Rijkswerf (Willemsoord), 1866 - 1867', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.245031

(accessed 1 January 2025 09:53:53).