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HMS Sovereign of the Seas - Bashing DeAgostini Beyond Believable Boundaries

Wow! That's significantly more detailed than Payne's. You mentioned Pett's painting earlier and I did a quick (not at all thorough) search, but could only find his portrait alongside the stern of SoS. This is a great resource and should make it quite a bit easier to model your carvings from.
 
Wow! That's significantly more detailed than Payne's. You mentioned Pett's painting earlier and I did a quick (not at all thorough) search, but could only find his portrait alongside the stern of SoS. This is a great resource and should make it quite a bit easier to model your carvings from.
Here is the site that discusses the painting. LINK
 
The sun with rays and crown, panel 5 on the lower balcony, is done.
View attachment 559423
Hi Kurt;

(Edit: I am referring to the panel to the left of the cannon barrel, not the one to the right. I think I have replied to the wrong post, somehow)

I truly hope that you will not be upset by my post here, but that panel is not the sun's rays; it is a scallop shell, which is a common motif in carved decoration.

It was also the emblem of St James of Compostella (James was a fisherman before he became one of Jesus' main disciples) the patron saint of Spain, I believe. The scallop badge was carried by thousands who made the pilgrimage to Compostella.

See examples below: there are probably thousands around with a quick search.

All the best,

Ratty

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Hi Kurt;

You probably already know this, but the 4 panel portrait is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. I saw it there, and it is a truly impressive work. The black and white images do it no justice. Unfortunately, the drawer in which it was kept would not open fully, and it was not possible to examine it as well as I would have liked. There is also a glass screen about 4 inches above it, which makes photography, and measurement, very difficult. Due to the quality, I believe that this work was executed by a professional artist of the time, perhaps even van Dyck.

This painting was made for the king to comment on the proposed decoration, which he did in a letter dated to early 1637, which survives in the National Archives. He ordered that the three figures in the upper strake (above the quarter gallery) were to be changed to match more with the themes of the other panels, something which we can see from both the Payne engraving, and the Van de Velde picture, was done.

I believe that the available images of this painting are somewhat distorted. I have scaled it up in AutoCAD, to match the overall length which Heywood gives in his book, and at that size nothing else seems to fit with any other known measurements. Also, the limited quantity of photos which I was able to make do not match in proportion to a print which I made of parts of this painting from the online images.

There are currently efforts underway to persuade the curator to carry out a new scan of this work; but it's taking a long time.

All the best,

Ratty
 
Hi Kurt;

(Edit: I am referring to the panel to the left of the cannon barrel, not the one to the right. I think I have replied to the wrong post, somehow)

I truly hope that you will not be upset by my post here, but that panel is not the sun's rays; it is a scallop shell, which is a common motif in carved decoration.

It was also the emblem of St James of Compostella (James was a fisherman before he became one of Jesus' main disciples) the patron saint of Spain, I believe. The scallop badge was carried by thousands who made the pilgrimage to Compostella.

See examples below: there are probably thousands around with a quick search.

All the best,

Ratty

View attachment 559557
Upset? Heck no. Team effort! If anyone has ideas, I'm going to entertain them and it's easy for me to misinterpret these objects because of lack of historical knowledge regarding their origin. Members here have new sources of information. I'll redo this panel, since you were kind enough to provide a much better interpretation of it. No worries. Keep the advice coming! My sources are limited. As for the images, these are the only ones I have, and the black and white ones are far more detailed than the color image. I don't trust any painting's proportions, only the subject elements. You certainly can't trust the porportions of the stern painting of the ship in the "Peter Pett and Sovereign of the Seas". The gun decks don't even line up between the sides and stern.

Here you go. Bear in mind that because of the angled aspect of the ship in the engraving, the objects appear slightly out of position and appear to have different angles than the image behind them. After printing, the parts can be filed a small bit to help fit them together or reprinted after being adjusted in shape in Blender.
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