Model of a 40-Gun Ship

Entry

Polychromed, fully detailed wooden construction model in three superimposed sections, fully framed and planked, mounted on a stand.

Forty-eight gun ports are indicated in three tiers. The model has a small orlop deck aft, a lower deck, a main deck and a beakhead platform, forecastle, quarterdeck and a poop. All are indicated by beams and carlings, the aft sections of the upper three decks are planked. The detailed beakhead has a crowned lion for a figurehead and the bowsprit rests on the stem. The stern has a round tuck, a hollow counter with side counter timbers and two gun ports. The two-storey taffrail is decorated with carvings of foliage and garlands and a blank cartouche. The single-storey quarter galleries have bell-shaped roofs. Below the stern a straight, square-headed rudder with a tiller-sweep beneath the main deck and a steering wheel on the quarterdeck are specified. The galley is placed in the hold. The model has a capstan on the lower deck and another one on the main deck, a brake pump with cistern and pump dales on the main deck. The ship’s bell is situated on the forecastle to starboard. The model has three sets of channels rigged with deadeyes. The sheer rises towards both ends, the model has two wales and a sheer rail. The hull is S-bottomed and is painted white below the waterline.

Remarkable features are the replacement of the central keelson with two sister keelsons, and the unique construction of the bitts, manger and capstans. Underneath the white lead paint on the underwater body, waterlines have been drawn in pencil.

The model is first mentioned in 1765, when the widow of the shipwright Leendert van Zwijndregt (1708-1764) tried to sell it with the help of the Rotterdam bookshop owner Pieter Holsteyn.⁴ At an unspecified, but later date, Jochem Pietersz Asmus (1755-1837) purchased the model for his private collection at an auction held in De Brakke Grond in Amsterdam.⁵ Following the appointment of Asmus as the first Keeper of the Navy Model Room in 1818, the model was sent from Amsterdam to the Department of the Navy in The Hague.⁶

According to Holsteyn the model was made by Leendert van Zwijndregt, and Obreen adds that it demonstrates a new construction method adopted by the Admiralty of Rotterdam in 1756.⁷ However, there is no evidence of any new construction method employed by Leendert van Zwijndregt. However, the remarks made in 1737 by Brest dockyard constructor Blaise Ollivier (1701-1746) concerning the building method of Leendert’s father Paulus van Zwijndregt (1681-1749) agree with this model in too many particulars to be a mere coincidence.⁸

In 1738 the Admiralty in Rotterdam purchased a palm wood model with removable decks in London.⁹ While the ship itself is undoubtedly Dutch, many of the model’s details are distinctly not Dutch. It is therefore likely that this is the model ordered in London, and that it was made according to Paulus van Zwijndregt’s specifications in order to demonstrate his building method as part of his discussions with the British shipwrights John Davis and Charles Bentam (?-1758) who were working for the Admiralty of Amsterdam at that time.¹⁰ The model is now without its three masts, but model (NG-MC-127) is the mainmast belonging to this model.