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

Object number: NG-MC-424

Polychromed wooden half bracket model of the starboard side of a two-masted flat-bottomed vessel, mounted on a rectangular wooden backboard.

The side of the ship is depicted by ribbands attached to frame moulds. Above the wale the side is planked. A black rail on stanchions runs along the entire length of the vessel. The deck is closed and has two gun emplacements, one forward next to the foremast and one aft in the middle, and three hatches. Fourteen thole pins are fitted in the gunwale. The bow features a lower beakhead, while a knee decorated with a scroll supports the bowsprit. The sheer rises towards both ends. One wale and a sheer rail are indicated. The stern has a round tuck, a hollow counter, a closed oval taffrail pierced with a gun port and a broad rudder below. The hull is flat-bottomed and painted white below the waterline. The position of two masts and the bowsprit are shown in a truncated form.

According to Obreen this war galley was a French design.¹¹J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 424. Weerwraak, originally Valk, was built at the Amsterdam dockyard from 1797 to 1799. In the summer of 1799, Weerwraak was attacked by British warships near Schiermonnikoog. Its commanding officer, Lieutenant J. van Maren, beached the vessel and, while under heavy fire, set fire to his ship to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.²²J.C.J. de Jonge, Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche zeewezen, 5 vols. and index, Haarlem 1858-62, vol. 5, p. 448.

Scale (on model) approx. 1:33.

C. van der Aa, Geschiedenis van den jongst-geëindigden oorlog, (1793-1802), tot op het sluiten van den vrede te Amiëns, bijzonder met betrekking tot de Bataafsche Republiek. Uit de beste authentique stukken, berichten, aantekeningen, en andere echte bronnen bijeengezameld en in order gebragt, 10 vols., Amsterdam 1802-07, vol. 7, p. 346; A.J. van der Aa, Biographisch woordenboek der Nederlanden, 21 vols., Haarlem 1852-78, vol. 12-1, p. 10; J.C.J. de Jonge, Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche zeewezen, 5 vols. and index, Haarlem 1858-62, vol. 5, p. 448; J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 424; A.A. Lemmers, Van werf tot facilitair complex. 350 jaar marinegeschiedenis op Kattenburg, The Hague 2005, p. 189; A.J. Hoving, Message in a Model: Stories from the Navy Model Room of the Rijksmuseum, Florence, OR 2013, pp. 112-17

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Half Model of a 3-Gun War Galley, Netherlands, c. 1799', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20053729