The American Marine Model Gallery

The American Marine Model Gallery

Model: Erik Ronnberg, Jr. M. S. AYER

Launched in 1882 at the Burnham Shipyard, Essex, Massachusetts, she was a ‘clipper’-bowed type fishing schooner from an original half model design by Willard A. Burnham. This vessel was one of three matching schooners built for John Wonson of East Gloucester. This well researched and beautifully made model depicts the schooner at the beginning of her career as a George’s Bank hand-line fisherman. The model is constructed on a waterline lift hull method of basswood, scribed-in hull planking, built-up bulwarks, detailed iron work & fittings, hand painted work-action figures, delicately rigged with linen, set stay sail, and is authentically painted and fitted out for the Cod fishery. She is presented on an elevated sculpted hand painted sea which allows one to see beneath the water and envision the fishing process. The waterline display is set into a mahogany frame with a glazed cover trimmed in brass.

1/8” Scale, Class A, Case: 25 1/2” L x 20 3/8” H x 9 3/8” W
Price: $22,000

Biography: ERIK A. R. RONNBERG, JR. (1944 - )

This renowned New England ship model artist follows in the wake of his father, an internationally known model maker acclaimed for his ship model making, particularly the precision and accuracy of ships’ rigging. Ronnberg, Sr. was born in Sweden, worked as a ships’ rigger in Gloucester, and crewed aboard the last square-rigger to deliver a cargo in Boston Harbor, which was around 1940. During his childhood the younger Ronnberg worked and apprenticed in his father’s workshop, later studying biology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst for three years, until his interest in ships and maritime history became overwhelming.

In order to gain more experience and insight into model making, he joined the industrial model-making firm of Atkins and Merril in Sudbury, where he learned how to observe ships and ascertain their structure. The variety of experience gained there honed his technical skills in drafting, interpreting plans, and working with metals and plastic. Ronnberg studied design under William A. Baker, curator of the Hart Nautical Museum at M.I.T. He also did a nine-month apprenticeship in a museum in Newark, N.J., and spent four years at the whaling museum in New Bedford, where he became curator of maritime history. He has a model of a whaleboat on display there, complementing a book he wrote on whaleboats in general, both how to build them and models of them.

In 1973 he returned to help his father run two nautical gift shops, one of which was turned into a hobby and model shop where the younger Ronnberg built models from scratch and designed kits for sale to kit manufacturers. In the late seventies, noted marine artist Thomas Hoyne III purchased from Ronnberg, Jr. several large ship models, which he used as artist’s models for some of his famous marine paintings depicting ships in wild seas. Hoyne in his paintings repeated Ronnberg’s accuracy with such details as location of pumps, the number and shape of the bolts on top of the pumps, etc. As editor of the Nautical Research Journal for several years, Ronnberg changed its layout, design, typefaces, and introduced color covers to bring it into the modern era. He is also an excellent watercolor painter, having learned the art of mixing colors and brushing techniques from a well-known Rockport artist. A painting of his is included in the collection at the Peabody Essex Museum. For several years he has served as consultant to the South Street Seaport floating museum in Manhattan, designing the decorative scrollwork on the bow of the Lettie G. Howard, a fishing schooner built at Essex in 1893 for a Beverly fisherman. Ever the consummate perfectionist combining research with precision craftsmanship, Ronnberg, Jr. feels he has yet to create his best work.

Mr. Ronnberg’s work can be viewed at the following museums: Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts; Whaling Museum, New Bedford, Massachusetts; Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, Connecticut; Hart Nautical Museum (M.I.T.), Cambridge, Massachusetts and the Cape Ann Historical Association, Gloucester, Massachusetts.