THE ASTROLABE, A MODEL SHIP mid 20th century, on stand 80cm long overall Notes: The Astrolabe, a 380-ton corvette, was built by Toulon Shipyard in France and was launched in 1811. The original name of the Astrolabe was Coquille. She was used as a horse transport ship, but was later transformed to carry men and ammunition in 1813. Because of the ship's qualities it was again transformed to carry out scientific, geographic and ethnographic studies during navigation. L'Astrolabe circumnavigated the world three times and the expeditions lasted three years each. As La Coquille, she charted the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea, before making her first scientific voyage around the world in 1822, exploring the southern hemisphere. Renamed Astrolabe in 1825, the corvette sailed for a second voyage of discovery under the command of Captain Dumont d'Urville. She sailed the Australian and Western Pacific Islands and visited 120 islands in total. During this voyage Astrolabe faced many obstacles including torrential storms and almost sank. Then in 1836, the French Emperor Louis-Philippe mounted an expedition to locate the magnetic pole under the command of Dumont D'Urville. During this expedition he discovered a land in the Antarctic to which he gave the name of his wife, the 'Terre Adelie' or 'Adele Landâ'. During her career, the ship helped catalogue and collect a vast amount of knowledge in the field of botany and fauna. L'Astrolabe was finally decommissioned in 1851. The ship is extremely dirty and dusty and will need a major clean. It appears to be mainly complete with some minor damage.