Object data
brass, bronze and copper (silvered and gilt)
depth 38 cm × diameter 53.6 cm
Boulton & Watt (possibly)
Light for a Lighthouse
United Kingdom, France, c. 1818
Provenance
...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883
Object number: NG-MC-832
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Argand lamp, consisting of a lamp holder with a fuel reservoir and a parabolic mirror, all attached to a brass frame.
The reservoir, fixed to the back of the mirror, is an elegant and partly gilded container with a float valve in the bottom, set in a cylinder and connected to the lamp via a conduit. The lamp holder has a small fuel receptacle below. The glass is missing. The parabolic mirror is made of copper, the mirror face is silvered.
The Swiss François Pierre Aimé Argand (1750-1803) developed this type of light for lighthouses in 1782. It was patented in the United Kingdom in 1784. An improved design appeared in 1790. Boulton & Watt produced these lights for Argand in the United Kingdom.
The first lighthouse in the Netherlands to be equipped with fifteen of these ‘catodioptric’ (reflecting) lights was the lighthouse of Westkapelle in 1818, followed by the lighthouse of Kijkduin. The lights were bought in the United Kingdom.
Literature
J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 832; G. Doorman, Het Nederlandsch octrooiwezen en de techniek der 19de eeuw, The Hague 1947, pp. 125-26, 232, no. 1012; A.W. Lang, Entwicklung, Aufbau und Verwaltung des Seezeichenwesens an der Deutschen Nordseeküste bis zur Mitter des 19. Jahrhunderts, Bonn 1965, pp. 79 ff.; L. Crommelin and H. van Suchtelen, Nederlandse vuurtorens. Bouw en organisatie, Nieuwkoop 1978, pp. 13-14, figs. 5-6, 29; R. van der Veen, Vuurtorens. Over vierboeten, lichtwachters en markante bouwwerken, Groningen/Bussum 1981, pp. 37-41
Citation
J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'possibly Boulton & Watt, Light for a Lighthouse, United Kingdom, c. 1818', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.244646
(accessed 10 November 2024 18:11:17).