A Deptford Ship for the House of Savoy? Uncovering the origin of the National Maritime Museum’s Ship Model SLR0436

Abstract

Model-making has been part of the history of the world as a scaled-down, and often simplified, version of an object. This form of representation has had different functions including validation, creative solution, communication and decoration among others. Models depicting ships are known at an early date from ancient Egypt, although some of those boats had funerary ritual symbolism. More than four millennia later the ship models of the eighteenth century were conceived at a time when naval power was reaching a new chapter offered by technological advancements. Such items, made for shipyards and wealthy patrons, showed details that otherwise would have been missed from the plans and became a physical record of the constructive accomplishment. When other data such as plans are missing, the details from these models are vital to determine the otherwise obscure provenance in the same way as details associated with written or pictorial accounts. The purpose of this paper is to determine the origin of the model SLR0436 stored at the National Maritime Museum’s model collection at its Chatham site. The features of the model will be discussed as well as the merits of the different hypotheses, including the historical context. Finally, it proposes that the most credible provenance, given the evidence, is the Vittorio, a ship built in Deptford in 1716 for the Savoyard navy.