Description :: |
Soleil Royale Model Ship Kit
Dear Mr. Rehaz Lal,
I received the kit
yesterday. I open
the box and check the contents. It
seems everything is in good condition .
Mantua Model Group have been producing
period model boat kits since after the war and were the first company to innovate
and use the cutting ability of laser beams to produce very accurate and high
quality products.
Mantua are also based in Italy and are also able to supply
very high quality fittings and building materials for the model boat
builder.
The Ship Model Kit contains pre-cut keel and frames, double planking, 320 cast brass ornaments, building plans.
History
Named in
honour of the Sun King, Louis XIV, Le Soleil Royal was one of the most
powerful ships of her day. As flagship of the revitalised French Navy
brought into being by the Minister of Marine Jean- Baptiste Colbert,
she was sumptuously decorated with wooden carvings depicting a variety
of motifs emblematic of the
French monarch.
As the sculptures recovered
from the Swedish warship Wasa prove, such lavish ornament was not
uncommon in seventeenth-century warships. Charles Le Bruns drawings of
the Statuary for le Soleil Royale are in the Louvre.
Details of the first decade of Le Soleil Royales service are obscure.
After her re-fit in 1889, she flew the flag of Vice Admiral
Anne-Hilarion de Contentin, Comte de Tourville, Admiral of the French
fleet.
In July 1690, Tourville led a fleet of seventy ships out of Brest and
on July 10, he met a combined English and Dutch fleet of fifty-seven
ships off Beachy Head.
The English and Dutch fleet lost eight ships, whilst the French lost none in a Victory called Beveziers.
Two years later, the position was reversed. Tourville with a fleet of
only forty-four ships was ordered to set sail from Brest on May 12,
1692. His order was to clear the English Channel for Louis XIVs
invasion force of thirty thousand men assembled near Cherbourg.
On May 20, Tourville again met an Anglo-Dutch fleet of eighty-seven
ships. By increasing the distance between his ships in line ahead,
Tourville prevented his fleet from being encircled and outflanked.
But Le Soleil Royale was so badly damaged, that Tourville was forced to transfer his flag to Ambitieux the next day.
Le Soleil Royale Ship Model and two other French vessels, was forced into
Cherbourg where they ran aground and were eventually destroyed.
Clowes, Royal Navy. Culver, Forty Famous Ships.
EM0796 |
