Hi All,
I travel to Toronto frequently on business, and I had to stay over the weekend this trip. This gave me an opportunity to finally go to the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO as they call it around these parts), and the Thomson Ship Collection. This is a collection of about 130 ships that Ken Thomson collected over many, many years and form a important part of his bequest to the AGO. It is really a fantastic collection, and represents ships from all eras. It is heavy on models representative of ships from Britain, but it also has some interesting ship models of other nations. Many of them are quite large scale (1/48). Very much worth the visit if you haven't had the opportunity. There is a good book documenting the collection in the museum shop for $CD 40.
Here is the description from the AGO web site:
The Thomson Collection of Ship Models spans some 350 years and
contains examples of exquisite workmanship and some of the masterpieces
of the genre. Foremost are rare late 17th and 18th century British
dockyard models, made to scale for the Royal Navy and wealthy
individuals. There is also a large number of models made by some of the
120,000 prisoners of the Napoleonic Wars. These models, made from wood
and bone with rigging of silk and human hair, were produced by teams of
skilled craftsmen and sold to local British collectors who gathered at
the prison gates.
The shipbuilders’ models extend from the mid
19th century to the Second World War, representing a diversity of both
model style and ship type ranging from tugs, dredgers and trawlers to
cargo vessels, passenger steamers, private yachts, corvettes,
battleships, cruisers, torpedo boats, destroyers and two aircraft
carriers.
Cheers, Rick