Nightingale

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By: Donald McNarry FRSA

Named for the “Swedish Nightingale” Jenny Lind, is shown having just dropped her starboard anchor and is simultaneously sheeting home her three topsails. Built in Portsmouth in 1851, the 185' Nightingale was constructed by Samuel Hanscom with the grandiose idea of conveying passengers to London for the Great Exhibition or “World's Fair,” but she cleared Boston on her maiden voyage for Melbourne in one of the first passages to transport miners to the newly discovered Australian gold fields. Sailing to Canton and Shanghai, she entered the lucrative tea trade to London. The solid wood hull is planked-over with holly shavings and shows some copper sheathing. The decks and deck houses are of wood all authentically painted, and it is fully rigged with copper wire or silk twisted to the correct diameter and painted black or natural coloration. The sea is carved from wood and then hand painted with artist oils. Glazed case if figured English walnut with hand engraved name plaques. Provenance: Model built in 1973; Private Collection, USA, Model is featured in McNarry’s book: Ship Models in Miniature, Plate 37, and on page 113.

Model type: Extreme Miniature, Merchant, Sail
Scale: 32' = 1" Scale
Size: 14 1/2" x 7 1/2" x 7 7/8"
Class: A/Special
Code: EXM 2602

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