Nautical Research Journal


Seventeenth-century Dutch ship design drawings. Real or counterfeit? By Ab Hoving


T e method used by Dutch shipbuilders in the construction of their ships in the seventeenth century was the so-called shell-fi rst system, in which the outer planks were decisive for the shape of the frames. Drawings were not involved. T is is reason enough to take a closer look at a group of seventeenth- century technical drawings in the collection of Het Scheepvaartmuseum Amsterdam. T e conclusion of this study is surprising.


T e Statenjacht drawings by Jacobus Storck


Het Scheepvaartmuseum Amsterdam has a number of architectural ship drawings from the seventeenth century with a strong technical character. Two of them give diff erent views of the same statenjacht: 62 feet long, 18 feet wide and 6 feet 7-1/2 inches deep. One shows a side view with a foot scale, the other a top view with, on the right, a midship section and, on the leſt , a section of which one half shows a couple of frames and the shape of the stern, and the other a rear view of the ship. (Figures 1 and 2) Both are signed and dated by Jacobus Storck, 1676. (Inventory numbers: 2015.4375 and 2015.4376.) T ey are drawn on remarkably thin paper and measure 19.6 x 39.9 and 29.3 x 30.7 centimeters respectively. T e drawings


Jacobus Storck lived in Amsterdam from 1641 to aſt er 1692, where he ran a painter’s studio with his younger brother Abraham (1644-1708). T eir father was the painter Jan Jansz. Sturck later called himself Sturckenburch, a name that his sons also used initially. Abraham was a successful maritime painter, while Jacobus focused more on city and river views and Italian coasts and capriccios (romantic fabricated


have recently been inventoried as ‘unknown in depot’, a formulation that indicates that they have probably been there for much longer and that


the origin


is unknown. T ey are depicted on page 17 of the 1943 Beschrijvende Catalogus der Scheepsmodellen en Scheepsbouwkundige Teekeningen


(the Descriptive Catalog of Ship Models and Ship Architectural Drawings 1600-1900) of what


1600-1900 then


was the Nederlands Historisch Scheepvaartmuseum Amsterdam (Dutch Historical Shipping Museum Amsterdam).


33


1. Drawing of a statenjacht of 62 x 18 x 6 feet 7½ inches, signed and dated; Jacobus Storck 1678. Het Scheepvaartmuseum Amsterdam, inventory number: 2015.4375 and 2015.4376.


2. Drawing of a statenjacht of 62 x 18 x 6 feet 7½ inches, signed and dated; Jacobus Storck 1678. Het Scheepvaartmuseum Amsterdam, inventory number: 2015.4376.


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