Golden Yacht Ship in a Bottle Kit (AM1350) Scale: 1:300 Length 9.5cm

in 1660 the City of Amsterdam gave a yacht like is to King Charles II of England, as part of the Dutch Gift. The King was so pleased with the gift that he decided to create special regattas for this type of vessel, and coined the nautical term Yacht, derived from the Dutch word Jaghtschip, that meant fast pirate ship.

The Dutch Gift of 1660 was a collection of 24 mostly Italian Renaissance paintings, four by Dutch Masters, and twelve classical sculptures. The gift was presented to newly-restored King Charles II of England on 16 November by envoys of the States of Holland.

Most of the paintings and all the Roman sculptures were from the Reynst collection, the most important seventeenth-century Dutch collection of paintings of the Italian sixteenth century, formed in Venice by Jan Reynst (1601–1646) and extended by his brother, Gerrit Reynst (1599–1658). The gift reflected the taste Charles shared with his father, Charles I, whose large collection, one of the most magnificent in Europe, had mostly been sold abroad after he was executed in 1649. Charles II was not as keen a collector as his father, but appreciated art and was later able to recover a good number of the items from the pre-war collection that remained in England, as well as purchasing many further paintings, and many significant old master drawings.

Some decades later, there was a reverse movement when 36 paintings from the English Royal Collection, including at least one of those given in 1660, were taken by the Dutch King William III of England to his Dutch palace of Het Loo. His successor to the throne, Queen Anne, tried to recover these after William’s death in 1702, but failed, and they mostly remain in Dutch public collections. Fourteen paintings from the 1660 gift remain in the Royal Collection, with others now in different collections around the world.

The Golden Yacht Ship in a Bottle Kit contains everything you need to build the ship in a bottle you have always dreamed of. Precut wooden parts, brass photoetched decks, keel and decorated bulwarks. A beautiful glass bottle is included.

Scale: 1/300
Model length: 3.75″