Most prisoner-of-war models were imaginative, and constructed from memory, depicting various types of warship rather than specific vessels. However, this model of the 74-gun ship Le Romulus, made by French prisoners in 1812, represents a genuine ship of the line in Napoleon’s navy, which fought the British in Toulon Bay in early 1814. It is a high-quality model, one of the few made from wood.

The donor purchased the model in ‘delapidated condition’ at a furniture auction in Oxford in 1927. After meticulous research it was painstakingly reconditioned in 1930, to conform in every detail to the contemporary French rigging. It thus represents an accurate example of a French man-of-war of the period.