The decorative models were consigned to various provincial auction houses in different parts of the country where they were catalogued as either Napoleonic or 19th century. Two failed to sell but the other sold above estimate at £2100.
Crude design suggests they are not from the classic period of prisoner of war modelling, the years 1793-1815 when captured French soldiers crafted ship models using salvaged pieces of bone and horn from the meat supplied to the galleys, and pieces of thread from their shirts. In most cases they were anything but amateur. As seasoned seamen with knowledge of contemporary fighting ship design and rigging, the POWs produced remarkably detailed, true-to-life models.
When shown images of the three models offered at auction in March, a leading specialist in the field poured scorn on their naïve design: "No prisoner of war would have made something like this. Napoleonic models were made by sailors who knew what a ship looked like… these examples don't resemble something that would float."
A second trade source said the models were made at least a century after the Napoleonic era and served as decorative objects. "Fakes are set out to deceive but these weren't made to deliberately replicate POW models."
Bone analysis is important in the identification process of a genuine Napoleonic ship model. Specialists look for the dense and closely woven bone of mature beef cattle (the younger mammals consumed today have a more porous bone grain with a distinguishable black fleck) and expect a model to be made from innumerable small fragments. In the case of these later models, with wide planks forming the hulls, old piano keys are thought to have been used.
