If ever there was a representation of the height of dockyard model carving and decoration, the Princess Royal would be it. The Princess Royal, 90 gun ship of 1773, was recently restored by Rob Napier, a master ship modeler. I had the good fortune to see this model uncovered and up close while it sat in Mr. Grant Walker's office at the Naval Academy, and the closer I looked, the more stunning it became. I'll post more pictures of this masterpiece as soon as time allows - you won't want to miss them!
This is the stern of the 56 gun Third Rate of 1650. Imagine, Oliver Cromwell was in power in England, the United States was little more than a tenuous string of English colonies, a young Charles II remained in exile, after his father Charles I had lost his head only a year earlier. And this model was built in that same year. It was modified sometime in the 1800's, but the bulk of the model has existed for over 350 years largely as you see it now. Stunning!
John Hatch and I returned from our visit to Annapolis yesterday afternoon, and what a trip! We had the exceedingly good fortune to spend much of the day with Grant Walker, who is the leading expert in the United States on the Henry Huddleston Rogers collection of dockyard models, as it's his job to oversee the collection. As we made our way to each model, Grant would share with us anecdotes about the model's history, in some cases it's misadventures, but in all cases his passion for this magnificent art. I took hundreds of pictures, some of which are terrible, others of which are a bit better and at least provide a glimpse of some detail of a model, and there's a few that I'm very pleased with. Our first visit last year was to focus on the Third Rates since the model I'm working on is of the class, but this time we tried to cover a good deal more subjects. I will apologize up-front for the milky images (photographing a model through 300 year old glass, or newer Plexiglas is a challenge at best) or those images overpowered by flash. I also offer the same humble apology if you can see the pants I'm wearing or my big fingers holding the camera better than the object of our interest, but we tried. Here's one of the images, the stern of the Second Rate St. George, a pillar of the collection.
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AuthorBill Abbott is a professional cartoonist, retired Navy SWCC, and is a passionate reader of Naval and maritime history. Archives
May 2014
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