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

Object number: NG-MC-1237

Wooden ‘bread-and-butter’ style half block model of the starboard side of a two-masted ironclad ram ship, mounted on a framed, rectangular wooden backboard, painted cream.

The model features a pointed ram bow, a cruiser stern fitted with a balance rudder with a blade that is rounded forward and aft. On the stern there is an aperture for one of the screw propeller shafts. On the main deck two deckhouses are indicated, one forward and one elongated one aft, both narrowing towards the gun turret which is placed in between them. A black funnel is placed on top of the aft deckhouse. The two masts are tripod masts of Cole’s system, although this system has only partly been applied to the model.

The ironclad ram ship Schorpioen, 59.68 metres long, was built in Toulon in France in 1868 and armed in the United Kingdom. The two 23-cm Armstrong guns were replaced by one 28-cm Krupp gun in 1884, the rigging was removed in 1885. In 1886 Schorpioen sank while in the basin of Nieuwediep, Den Helder, after a collision with a tugboat, but was raised. After 1909 it was used as a receiving ship and moored in Hellevoetsluis, Flushing, Gorinchem and Den Helder.¹¹A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 90; B. van Beuzekom, Van watergeus tot Schorpioen. Vier eeuwen Gorcum en de marine, Gorinchem 1979; D. Vries, ‘Vertraagde aflevering. Ramschip Zr. Ms. Schorpioen’, Scheepshistorie 15 (2013), pp. 58-63. At the latter port Schorpioen is moored until this day as a museum ship.

Scale (on model) 1:50.

E. Simpson, Report on a Naval Mission to Europe: Especially Devoted to the Material and Construction of Artillery, s.l. 1873; B.J. Tideman, Memoriaal van de Marine, bevattende opgaven betrekkelijk de afmetingen, constructie, ... van Nederlandsche oorlogsschepen en omtrent enige havens, dokken, sluizen, werven enz., Amsterdam 1876-80, livret F; J.M. Obreen et al., handwritten inventory list for items 944 to 1431, 1884, manuscript in HNA 476 RMA, inv. no. 1089, no. 1237; S. de H., ‘De eerste Nederlandsche pantserschepen’, Ons Zeewezen 30 (1931), pp. 382-84; A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 90; Ministerie van Marine/Ministerie van Defensie (ed.), Jaarboek van de Koninklijke Marine, The Hague 1906-, pp. 345-52; B. van Beuzekom, Van watergeus tot Schorpioen. Vier eeuwen Gorcum en de marine, Gorinchem 1979; J.M. Dirkzwager, ‘De introductie van pantserschepen in Nederland’, Tijdschrift voor Zeegeschiedenis 4 (1985), no. 1, pp. 23-41, esp. pp. 35-37; P. Oost, 123 jaar de ‘Schorpioen’ 1868-1990, s.l. c. 1990; D. Vries, ‘Vertraagde aflevering. Ramschip Zr. Ms. Schorpioen’, Scheepshistorie 15 (2013), pp. 58-63

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'Société Nouvelle de Forges et Chantiers de la Mediterranée, Half Model of an Ironclad Ram Ship, Toulon, 1868', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200316110