Today’s numbers are 29,219 and 25 – the total number of art objects and the number of ship models at the Addison Gallery of American Art.
The Addison, on the campus of Phillips Academy, is renowned for its works by Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, Thomas Eakins, Jackson Pollock, John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler, and a deep collection of photographs by luminaries such as Walker Evans.
But its beloved model ship collection reflects a part of its mission core — to exhibit the work of artisans as well as artists, said Rebecca Mongeon, the gallery’s communications coordinator.
That was the wish of Thomas Cochran, PA alumnus, trustee, and benefactor whose trust established the gallery, which opened in 1931, with the original 24 ship replicas commissioned or purchased as part of the founding collection.
The models, each at a scale of ¼ inch to 1 foot, are all connected to American history.
A 25th replica was added in 2016, the Wanderer, a slave ship that disguised itself as a merchant vessel into the late 1850s.
The original collection is displayed along the Addison’s basement corridors, with the exception of the Flying Cloud, the ultra-fast clipper ship built by Donald McKay in East Boston in 1851, and the
Wanderer, which is part of the gallery’s student-curated exhibit now on display. Both are on the first floor.
The replicas pay exquisite attention to detail. The model of the Dreadnought, a transatlantic packet ship built in Newburyport in 1853, has mahogany seats and red flannel blankets in the luxury cabins. The Baltimore-built Ann McKim, considered the first clipper ship, has a coffee pot on its miniature stove, and the Corsair, J.P. Morgan’s steam yacht, lays out an actual course on its tiny charts.
Other models include Christopher Columbus’s flagship, the Santa Maria; Henry Hudson’s Half Moon; the Pilgrims’ ship, the Mayflower; the US Navy’s first ship, the schooner Hannah, which was fitted out by famed Col. John Glover of Marblehead; the sloop Providence, the first command of John Paul Jones; Robert Fulton’s Clermont, the first commercial steamboat; the yacht America, which won the first of what became known as the America’s Cup; the New Bedford-built whaler Charles W. Morgan; and the Thatcher Magoun, a medium clipper built in Medford, which displays the gold medal awarded by the French government for its crew’s heroism In rescuing French merchantmen at sea.
The Addison Gallery, which is free to the public, attracts many visitors intent on seeing its impressive collection of paintings, photography, sculpture, or rotating exhibits.
For some, though, “they go straight to the basement to see the model ships,” Mongeon said.