During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many models were used as scale prototypes during ship construction. They often were not rigged, as rigging was standard for vessels of a particular type. This model may have been used for the design and construction of "Le Précieux," a 60-gun ship of the line and one of twelve ships of similar size and armament built about 1690. Owned by the Counts of Perlongue for more than two hundred years, the model was hung as a votive object in a church near Bordeaux, France.

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