Object data
wood, iron, lead, rope and paper
model: height 33.5 cm × width 28.8 cm × depth 12.1 cm
packaging capsule: height 40.5 cm × width 32.5 cm × depth 15.5 cm
anonymous
Model of an Optical Telegraph
Netherlands, c. 1795 - c. 1800
Conservation
- Ab Hoving, 1992: new base added
Provenance
...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883
Object number: NG-MC-815
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Model of an optical shutter telegraph, mounted on a square wooden pedestal.
A mast supports a wooden projector board with seventeen sawn-out geometrical forms, nine in the upper row, eight in the lower row. The same signals are repeated on an operating board below, drawn on paper. Each of the sawn-out projector shapes can be closed or opened by means of a lead shutter, which is operated by a rope going through the corresponding drawn figure below.
On the operating board thirty-six single and combined signs are numbered. Four service signs, such as ‘ready’ and ‘yes’, are explained in Dutch. The pedestal bears a label numbered ‘3’.
The model was found without an inventory label and the identification, therefore, is uncertain. In his catalogue Obreen describes model number 815 as a British telegraph.1 When found, the model was in a very bad condition; it has been restored since.
Scale unknown.
Literature
J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 815
Citation
J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Model of an Optical Telegraph, Netherlands, c. 1795 - c. 1800', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.244629
(accessed 11 November 2024 00:06:24).