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Medallion Series | Fantasy Series | Majestic Series
John Benedict's ship art creations are a blend of artistic expression and historic representation. Each and every piece is its own unique romantic representation of a ship from ancient times that is hand crafted from North American, South American and African hardwoods such as oak, ash, poplar, birch, mahogany, walnut, rosewood, padauk, purpleheart, redheart, dubingo, blood wood, or/and other hardwoods. Rigging lines are made from extremely strong, woven nylon/cotton cord or from brass rods. Pulleys are all individually hand carved from wood or created from brass tubing. All ship art is sealed with multiple coats of a polyurethane "frost" textured, clear satin finish to reduce glare and mitigate the visual effect of dust build up.
As of 2015, John could not create anymore ship models. In total, John made over 25 ship models. Though no new ships are being made, you can check with the Benedict family to see if any of the existing ship collection has become available. Each piece of ship art came from an original design developed by the artist, and no two ships are ever exactly the same. Some ship designs were truly "one-of-a-kind" creations. Others designs were made in multiples, but with each piece slightly different in some way. The artist utilized historic drawings, paintings and, in some cases, architectural plans to help create the basic forms of the hulls and rigging, but the details of each ship was left to the artist's imagination. These ships were available nowhere else in the world except from John R. Benedict. John's ships were not intended to be true historic replicas of any particular ship, but rather artistic representatives of particular types of ships from naval history.
More About Ship Designs
John created three different types of ship art series: the Medallion Series, Fantasy Series, and Majestic Series: each offering a notable difference in the level of detail and artistic expression.
Medallion Series Ships
The Medallion Series design concepts came from the fanciful images of ships represented on ancient stone relief carvings, and on maritime administrative seals and medallions. Dimensional elevations for the hulls were left in place with little or no carving to produce a "layered effect." Details on the hull and rigging are extremely simplified or lacking. All rigging was made from brass rods and/or tubing. Ships generally took less than one hundred hours to create over several weeks or months.
Fantasy Series and Majestic Series Ships
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Though the Fantasy Series and Majestic Series ship art pieces were designed to have more historically representative hulls, John accentuated the ships' trim work, deck detail (such as cannons), and rigging by exaggerating its size while at the same time simplifying its detail so as to make it more visible from long viewing distances. Because of the hundreds to thousands of hours required to make each ship model over a period of one to three years from high quality raw materials, John made very few of these ship models in his lifetime.