Scale: 1:72. This model appears to represent a French 80-gun ship of the time of the French Revolution. The British built very few 80-gun ships in this period, because the three-decker 80-gun had failed and the two-decker 74-gun was almost as good, and rather cheaper than the two-decker 80-gun. The French built many, however, and sometimes they served as flagships in place of two-deckers. A number were captured by the British and put in service. These included the ‘Franklin’, built at Toulon in 1797 and captured at the Nile a year later. Re-named ‘Canopus’, it had considerable influence on British design after 1815.

The model has an elaborate figurehead and stern carved in British style, suggesting that this model of a French ship was made there.