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Model of the Dutch East India Company ship "Valkenisse"

Model of the Dutch East India Company ship "Valkenisse"

1717
Object PlaceThe Netherlands
Medium/TechniqueWood with hemp-and-cotton rigging
DimensionsOverall: 48.3 x 35.6 x 172.7 cm (19 x 14 x 68 in.)
Container: 235 x 111.8 x 226.1 cm (92 1/2 x 44 x 89 in.)
Overall (Fully rigged): 228.6 x 96.5 x 203.2 cm (90 x 38 x 80 in.)
Credit LineGift of John Templeman Coolidge
Accession number32.183
On View
On view
ClassificationsModels
Collections
Description
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, ships called East Indiamen-the finest and largest merchant ships of the time-were used for European trade to Asia. Richly ornamented and gilded, they evoked much national and company pride. East Indiamen were armed like war vessels for protection from attacks by pirate ships. The maiden voyage of "Valkenisse," a 60-gun Dutch East Indiaman, began in 1717, and she was wrecked in 1740. Measuring about 160 feet in length and about 40 feet in breadth, she was the largest of the Dutch East Indiamen. In the 1990s, Rob Napier of Newburyport, Massachusetts, meticulously researched, conserved, and rigged "Valkenisse," reconditioning this important model to its present appearance for the first time in many years.
ProvenanceBy 1923, Clarkson A. Collins, Jr.; about November 1928, to J. Templeman Coolidge; 1929, lent by Coolidge to the MFA February 27, 1929; 1932, given by Coolidge to the MFA (Accession date: July 21, 1932).