Furniture, Works of Art & Clocks - 6th July 2021
Lot 325
A FINE FRENCH PRISONER OF WAR BONE SHIP MODEL
Estimate £4,000 - £6,000 | Hammer £17500
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Description
A FINE FRENCH PRISONER OF WAR BONE SHIP MODEL
EARLY 19TH CENTURY
of a forty-eight gun frigate of the Royal Navy, with a planked and pinned hull with horn strakes, with three masts with standing and running rigging, the stern carved with a coat of arms flanked by a lion and a unicorn above balustrading and windows, with a polychrome decorated winged female figurehead, the deck with capstan, water barrels, a bell, two longboats and metal cannon on bone carriages, gratings, with gilt metal details, mounted on a parquetry base inlaid with a bone and ebony chequer board with fan ends and an outer gallery on stained red bone feet, with a glazed display case (2)
the model: 43.5cm high, 50cm long, the display case: 50.4cm high, 62cm wide
Provenance
Major Edward Croft-Murray, purchased on the 2nd December 1908 from Lisle Court, Wootton, Isle of Wight for £4 and 12 shillings and listed in an inventory as 'Model of Frigate, in bone in glass case, on a mahogany bracket, made by French prisoners of war at Portchester Castle about 1810', thence at Perivale, Ryde, Isle of Wight, where listed in an inventory in 1926.
From the collection of Edward Croft-Murray CBE (1907-1980).
Catalogue Note
Portchester Castle is a medieval fortress based at Portchester to the east of Fareham, Hampshire. It was used as a prison from the 17th century and in the 19th century it was a gaol for over 7,000 French prisoners of the Napoleonic wars.