Unknown French Barbette Ironclad Study Model c1870

[McTodd]

This is an appeal to anybody with knowledge of French ironclad design concerning a mystery model which I describe below...

There is a French online antiques seller which, for some considerable time, has advertised a mysterious and intriguing model of an unknown French barbette ironclad. The listing is titled thus:

MAQUETTE D'ÉTUDE DE PROFILAGE CUIRASSÉ TYPE LE REDOUTABLE

The model is dated by them to 1870. It is made of wood and appears to be a preliminary study model of some kind as it is relatively undetailed. It measures 108cm in length, but no scale is given so it is impossible to be precise about the size of the ship it represents. It is described as representing a battleship of the Redoutable type and, like that vessel, has both a sailing rig (it features the stumps of three masts) and a central battery.

The way the model is painted appears to convey information, rather than being purely an aesthetic choice: the grey areas, I believe, represent armour, because the regions they cover (a full-length belt at the waterline, the central battery and the barbettes fore and aft) conform to French armouring practice at the time.

Date-wise I would place it around the mid-1870s, rather than 1870. The Redoutable, of which it is said to be a type, was laid down in 1873, and the model looks like a later, more advanced design. I make this assumption from the barbettes fore and aft, which appear more developed than those of the Redoutable and its immediate and very similar successors, the Devastation and Courbet. The Redoutable's barbettes were fairly primitive open turntables with no protection, whereas on the model there appear to be small rounded shields over the breech ends of the (missing) guns. The French didn't fit splinter-proof shields until the battleship Amiral Duperre (which followed the Devastation and Courbet), which wasn't laid down until 1877, but because the model has a central battery I believe it pre-dates the Amiral Duperre (on which the central battery was dispensed with). What's most odd about the barbettes on the model, incidentally, is that they appear to be two-gun barbettes. Unlike, for example, the British, the French only ever built single-gun barbettes (see the photos of a model of Amiral Duperre below). Their first twin mounting was a turret in the Brennus, laid down in 1889.

In the Amiral Duperre, the central battery was discarded, as noted above, and all the main guns were mounted in armoured and shielded barbettes. To me, then, the model appears to represent some kind of transition from the Redoutable type to the Amiral Duperre, and therefore fits date-wise between the two. It also displays a couple of unique features: the twin-mounting barbettes, as noted, and the three funnels, at a time French battleships had either one or two.

Does anyone have any concrete information about this design?

To help with comparisons, as well as the photos of the mystery model I've also attached images depicting the Redoutable and Amiral Duperre.

MAQUETTE D'ÉTUDE DE PROFILAGE CUIRASSÉ TYPE LE REDOUTABLE
Weight: 9.00 (Kg)
Creation date: 1870
Size: 42.6 X 8.3 X 7.5 (inches) / 108.0 x 21.0 x 19.0 (cm)
Material: Wood
Price: 1,800.00 €

https://www.masterposters.com/for-s...se-type-le-redoutable-reduct-models-9717.html