62 
House & Garden 
Rogation tide there is a solemn procession, in 
which all the islanders join bearing banners or 
candles, from the church to the quay where the 
abbe, attended by his assistant clergy and acolytes 
with crucifix, censer and candles, gets into a 
shallop and is rowed a little way out into the 
harbor where he blesses the sea for its harvest 
of fish and prays for the safe return of those 
wlio are about to set forth with the fleets for 
the banks. It is an exceedingly solemn and 
touching ceremony; the people’s all is bound up 
with the season’s catch of fish and there are 
perils a-plenty ahead for the hardy fishermen, 
perils from which some of them are almost cer¬ 
tain never to come back. This ceremony of 
blessing the sea for the fishing is exactly com¬ 
parable to the old English Rogation tide proces¬ 
sion to bless the fields and ‘‘beat the parish 
bounds.” The significant thing to our 
immediate purpose is that an irn- 
portant feature of the procession is 
a ship’s model—a new one is made 
every year—which is carried with 
great state to the quay and then, 
after the ceremony, is returned to 
the church as a votive offering and 
hung up in the silent navy along 
with its predecessors of foregoing 
years. The same practice, with slight 
local variations, prevails in plenty 
of other places. In Protestant coun¬ 
tries, although this votive significance 
has ceased, the popularity of the ships’ 
models has more or less continued 
in certain localities. 
Old Salts’ Hobby 
Quite apart from any religious 
connection, there were various other 
occasions that gave rise to the mak¬ 
ing of ships’ models. !Many a sea¬ 
man, too old to follow the sea any 
longer, has whiled away monotonous 
hours by making a model of the ship 
whose rigging he climbed in his 
lusty prime, reproducing with pains¬ 
taking care and exactitude every 
well remembered detail. Some of 
these models, pathetic little labors of 
old men’s love and pride, are ad¬ 
mirable examples of skillful work¬ 
manship. So also are many of the 
models made as a diversion during 
enforced idleness or confinement by 
prisoners of war, especially some of 
the French sailors held prisoners in 
England in the latter part of the 
18th Century. Some of these accu¬ 
rate and beautifully made models 
are constructed entirely of bits of 
bone gradually accumulated from the 
meat supplied with the daily food 
and it often required months of 
patient waiting to secure a bone large 
enough for a mast or spar. The 
fragments of bone were whittled into 
proper shape, nicely fitted, polished 
and riveted together until, at last, 
the finished model appeared, a monu¬ 
ment of patience and skill although it was some¬ 
times less than a foot in length. 
A careful student and collector of these models 
states that “it has been estimated that some of 
the ships took from two to three years to build 
and are without doubt not only the handsomest 
but most accurate models conceivable.” 
Of scarcely less interest and almost incredibly 
deft workmanship are some of the ships’ models 
to be found hanging from the ceiling, until very 
recently at any rate, in several old London water¬ 
front taverns, bartered by sailors on shore leave 
in payment of a score or as the price of a night’s 
carousing with a party of cronies. 
Shipwrights’ Models 
Equally interesting as examples of craftsman¬ 
ship and mastery of nautical design, though not 
invested with the same picturesque associations 
as some of the specimens just noted, are the 
models made by shipwrights in the 18th and 
early 19th Centuries. They are marvels of accu¬ 
racy and were produced at considerable expense. 
There is record of one such shipwright’s model, 
made in Pennsylvania for a ship owner prepara¬ 
tory to laying the keel of a great clipper ship 
to be constructed precisely like it, that cost up¬ 
wards of $600, and doubtless there were plenty 
of others, made under similar conditions, that 
cost as much or more. 
In the early part of the 19th Century it was 
frequently the practice of marine insurance com¬ 
panies, both here and in England, to require of 
the ship’s owner a model of his vessel before 
insuring it and this model was deposited in the 
insurance company’s office, or occasionally in the 
ship owner’s counting house, fitted into a cradle 
or stand so that it could be placed on top of 
a bookcase or desk. While this custom lasted, 
many of the finest old square-rigged ships were 
being built and their models docked in office 
havens only to be neglected and forgotten by 
the busy world. It is no uncommon thing, even 
today, to find some of these models occupying 
places of honor in the offices of the older marine 
insurance companies, thanks to the homage of 
a few admiring souls who, one after another, 
have cherished them for nearly a century. 
Sometimes the models were cut in half and 
mounted, as here, in a shallotv box realistically 
painted. Courtesy of Joseph Patterson Sims, Esq, 
While the usual material of their construction 
is wood, they were also made of sundry other 
substances. Bone models, made by French 
prisoners of war, have already been mentioned. 
Occasionally a tiny model is found executed in 
ivory. Then, again, others were fashioned all 
of metal. The writer heard the other day of 
one Dutch model made entirely of pewter and, 
now and then, the precious metals played their 
part. In size the models range from 6' or 7' in 
length down to veritable miniature dimensions. 
The usual size, however, of the old models is 
from about 18" to 3' in length. It must be 
remembered that not a few of these old models 
are not merely images but really models made 
faithfully to scale in the minutest particulars, 
and this fact can only increase our respect for 
the skill of those who fashioned tljem. 
Nearly every kind of craft that ever floated 
is represented in the models of one period or 
another and of various nationalities—Chinese 
junks, Spanish galleons and caravels, high-pooped 
English and Dutch merchantmen of the 17th 
Century, 18th Century “ships of the line,” square- 
rigged East Indiamen, schooners, everything in 
fact down to the most modern of motor boats 
and sailing yachts and cruisers. 
It is only recently that the collecting of ships’ 
models has obtained a wide popular vogue, but 
in a quiet and less extensive way they have been 
cherished and collected by a few individuals or 
institutions for many years past. The oldest and 
largest collection is that in the Rijks Museum in 
Amsterdam, where a large room is entirely de¬ 
voted to displaying them. Their present com¬ 
mercial value is of late growth. Although many 
of the shipwrights’ models represent the outlay 
of considerable sums in their original construc¬ 
tion, the majority of ships’ models for many 
years had only such financial value as the owners 
chose to attach to them or some isolated admirer 
was willing to pay for the pleasure of acquisition. 
Now the conditions have wholly changed; the old 
models are fetching prices ever soar¬ 
ing higher and higher and reproduc¬ 
ers are making models for which they 
receive anywhere from $600 to $1,500 
or more. 
Their Decorative "Value 
To anyone at all familiar with 
ships’ models their tremendous and 
intensely individual decorative value 
must be perfectly obvious, so obvious, 
indeed, that it would be merely “car¬ 
rying coals to Newcastle” to point 
out the sundry reasons for and mani¬ 
festations of this quality. It will 
not be amiss, however, to point out 
several ways in which we may ap¬ 
propriately employ ships’ models to 
decorative advantage. Fitted into a 
cradle or stand they may be set on 
the tops of such pieces of wall fur¬ 
niture as bookcases, secretaries, high¬ 
boys or cabinets or even upon a side 
table conveniently placed. 
Again, there is many a model 
would make, all by itself, an admir¬ 
able mantel garniture, especially if 
there is a plain panelled white chim¬ 
ney-piece to act as a foil. 
Still another way, and a fascinat¬ 
ing way it is, of displaying ships’ 
models is to hang them by a chain 
from the ceiling as was done in the 
churches with the votive ships. Shown 
in this way they seem to have more 
living charm and individuality than 
when fixed in a rigid cradle. In a 
large room this method is to be fol¬ 
lowed, if it is possible to do so, but 
no more advantageous or fairer way 
of using a ship’s model could be 
devised than to hang it in an open 
stair well. Here it could be viewed 
from below, from a level and from 
above by those going either up or 
down the stair. 
Good Places for Them 
The accompanying illustrations will 
suggest various other applications of 
the models to decorative purposes and 
visibly emphasize the fact that ships’ 
model enthusiasts are to be commended for their 
wisdom in reviving interest in a rich resource that 
we all too blindly disregarded until the present 
vogue began. 
To be sure, one would scarcely care to place a 
ship model, however small, in a boudoir or among 
the formal lines of a period drawing-room. Those 
are not fit settings for anything as full of the spirit 
of the open as these miniature frigates and clip¬ 
pers, with the details of their originals so truly 
reproduced to the last stick and bit of gear. By no 
means do they call for a niche surrounded by 
other spoils of the sea, but they do merit, and show 
at their best in a place of intrinsic strength, to 
which they bring an added touch of atmosphere 
as refreshing as it is unique. 
In addition to the uses already suggested for 
these ship models, in dining-rooms, stair well and 
other situations where they will show to advan¬ 
tage, mention may be made of their peculiar ap¬ 
propriateness for the real man’s room. Such a 
room inevitably expresses its owner’s characteris¬ 
tics and tastes. Rare indeed is the outdoor man 
who does not feel at least a secret longing for the 
miniature ship. If his hobby is sailing, there are 
the modern models or, in many ways superior to 
them in the impression they make, the old-time 
craft some of whose originals made seafaring his¬ 
tory a record in the old sailing days of two or 
three generations ago. 
