Object data
wood, brass and iron
h 49.5 cm × w 33.8 cm × d 14 cm
Engelbert Lucas
Model of an Optical Telegraph for Ships
Netherlands, 1836
Inscriptions
- label, on the base: 825 former inventory label
Provenance
...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883
Object number: NG-MC-825
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Model of an optical telegraph for ships, mounted on a square pedestal.
The pole, made of iron, could represent a mast or flagpole to which the moving parts are attached. Four square wooden boards are hung on an iron yard, around which they can turn, and be moved by means of handles from below. They can each be set in one of three positions: upright, horizontal, or hanging.
This telegraph is a design by Captain Engelbert Lucas (1785-1870) that was to be used on ships.1 A similar telegraph can be seen on a drawing of the island Onrust in the Jakarta Bay and on an engraving of the Batavia harbour from circa 1850, indicating that there was telegraphic communication between the island, which at the time was a Navy yard, and the naval authorities on the mainland.
Scale unknown.
Literature
J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 825; A.A. Lemmers, ‘Het oog op Onrust’, Marineblad 109 (1999), no. 6, pp. 260-69; A.J. Hoving, Message in a Model: Stories from the Navy Model Room of the Rijksmuseum, Florence, OR 2013, pp. 128-31
Citation
J. van der Vliet, 'Engelbert Lucas, Model of an Optical Telegraph for Ships, Netherlands, 1836', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (ed.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam 2016: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.244639 (accessed 10 December 2019).