Océan in Miniature | Maritime Innovation in Miniature Series 2

For more ship models in the Maritime Innovation in Miniature Series, click here: hec.lrfoundation.org.uk/whats...
This is a model of the French battleship Océan, launched at Brest on 8 November 1790. Ships of the Océan class were designed to be flagships of the French navy and were the largest in the world. Océan was armed with 120 guns, had 3,250 square metres of sails, a crew of 1,130 and displaced 5,095 metric tonnes - that’s 1539 tons MORE than Nelson’s HMS Victory. In this period the French led the world in building large fighting ships.
The French navy was divided into five ranks and these ships were of the ‘Premier Rang’. The equivalent of the British ‘First Rate’. Eighteen ships were built in this class, to a design by the innovative French marine engineer Jacques-Noel Sané who standardised the designs of French ships of the line.
The model was made by a French prisoner of war. Prisoners were encouraged to make items to sell at daily markets and ship models were relatively common. This example, however, is a masterpiece, the finest prisoner of war ship model to have survived. They were made of bone, ivory, or tortoiseshell, in sizes from two inches to six feet or more. Whalebone was used for larger models but most, like the Océan, used ordinary beef bones saved from the prisoners’ meals. The rigging was made of hair, cotton or thread, made exactly as real rope. They were produced by teams of craftsmen, each contributing specific parts such as figureheads, rigging, or guns, and were realistic but not literally exact.
Ship model courtesy of the ‪@ScienceMuseum‬
#frenchnavy #frenchbattleship #frenchrevolution #maritime #history #historylovers #scalemodel #scalemodelling #scalemodel #shipmodel #battleship #warship #maritimehistory #shiphistory #shipmodeling #18thcenturyhistory #18thcentury #warships #navalhistory #trending #Shiplovers #MaritimeModels #ShipReplica #HistoricShips #sciencemuseum