September 6, 2009

More Old Famous Ship Models

A rigged model of a Flemish Carrack in the Science Museum, South Kensington, London, represents a ship of the largest class known in Flanders about 1450. With the exception of the long-boat and the deck arrangements which are based on other contemporary sources, every detail of the model is copied from a contemporary print by the Flemish master “W. A.” The print, which bears evidence of being a portrait of some ex voto church model, and is thus an excellent guide to the rig of the period, is so completely and carefully executed as to leave little or nothing of the original unrecorded, the perspective alone being at fault.

An interesting collection of early ship models are to be seen in the Musee de Marine in Paris, and others are to be found in other museums in the principal cities of the world.

Fig 3:Merchant Ship, by F. H. Mason, R.B.A.

A rigged model of a merchant ship, shown in Fig. 3, made by Mr. F. H. Mason, R.B.A., and exhibited in the Science Museum, London, represents a type of ship of about 150 tons burden developed largely by the Genoese, Portuguese and Spaniards, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries for the purpose of sea-borne commerce.