Amen to case for models - I have just retrieved a nicely made Artesina Latina moel of Scottish Maid from my recently deceased friends office - entirely covered in a thick layer of kitchen grease and elkhound fluff. Took two weeks with a sable brush and methylated spirits to get it clean. Produced a smashing museum-aged finish on the decks, spars and fittings to go with its new paint and sails, but I don't fancy a rerun so into a ripply glass antique style case it goes.
Now I'm looking at starting the Heller Soleil. I found this thread very interesting/inspiring. A lot of debate about stuff, personally I am more in favour of this model than most. As a prefessional researcher this is debate very intriguing. I am interested that very little mention is made of the Louis Quinze as a guide for Soleil Royale.
The Louis Quinze never existed as anything other than a model - but what a model it is! Fully finished in c. 35th scale it appears to have been made in the reign of Louis XIV for the instruction of his children, most probably the young Louis for whom it was named - He became king aged five. Thus functional accuracy and completeness may have been a prime requirement, and cost was clearly no object. It now resides at the Musee National de Marine in Paris.
As Louis XV was not born until 1710, it is unlikely that the model was created before this date if royal education was its purpose, which means that it is slightly later than the Soleil Royale. However, the Louis Quinze is beleived to be based upon the Royal Louis of 110 guns which although very slightly larger than Soleil Royale was built in 1692, only some 22 years after Soleil Royale was commissioned. A model of this ship is also in the Musee National de Marine - the similarities are striking.
Louis Quinze - Picture Wikipedia (courtesy: Rama, CC BY-SA 3.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3211555)
These big first rates were a rarity, and at the risky limits of contemporary technology. Thus the rate of their construction and possibly evolution was slow. The picture of the Louis Qunize above shows a ship with a hull form and detail that is strikingly similar to the Soleil Royale. Can the details of its masts and rigging and decortative pallette thus be taken to be siimilar too?