Collection of Ship Models

Since the development of seafaring cannot be truly presented without the various types of ships that marked certain periods in history, and as such a large number of "real" ships cannot be exhibited inside, the Museum has therefore developed a special Collection of Ship Models. These models are original museum objects since they were created as faithful copies of former existing ships, and although they serve as replacements of actual objects, they have the museological value of an original. Even though they make up the majority of the Collection (125 items), ship models are not the only artifacts found in it. The Collection also holds a model of Gripe Fortress as it was in the mid-19^th century, models of five seaplanes, one fighter plane and a helicopter, as well as models of regatta sailboats and cranes.

The oldest models in the Museum's holdings are those first presented at the Adriatic Exhibition in 1925. Occupying a special place among them is the model of a two-mast sailing ship, the work of an unknown author, which, however, is stated by several sources to have been made in the 19^th century. Also important are models of several sailing ships that were made by different, today unknown, authors for the Maritime Museum of the Adriatic Guard. Some of them, such as the leut and the gaeta, are still in their original glass cases with frames made of oak and wooden plaques with the original inscriptions: "Leut type Dalmatian coastal ship" and "Gaeta type Dalmatian coastal ship". Two models of sailing ships from Dubrovnik also date from this period and, due to the precise manner of their construction and numerous details, they are of special interest to visitors, even though they do not represent an exact reconstruction of the actual ships, but rather only a subjective view of the model maker. Four models of sailing ships created by Miroslav Štumberger are also on display.

The majority of models in the Collection, depicting the various warships from the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes/Yugoslavia, the Partisan and Yugoslav Navies, were made in Tivat in Boka Kotorska. That is where the Yugoslav Navy established a special workshop as part of the Tivat Naval Technical Overhaul Institute, which was led by Mirko Radović, and where numerous models were created. Both those of former warships as well as those of new ones that were, at that time, part of the Yugoslav Navy. A small number of models of warships from the Collection were made in the specialized workshop of the former Military and Naval Museum, headed by Leo Verle.

Collection Manager:  Ljubomir Radić, senior curator