Attribution principles of ship models

One of the main stages in the study of a museum object is attribution. Collections, which kept in thematic museums, require a special approach, and attribution of such objects is carried out based on specific principles. One of such groups of museum objects are models of ships and vessels, the largest collection of which in our country is situated in the Central Naval Museum in Saint Petersburg. The museum has vast experience in identifying and defining models. However, to date, existing publications and studies consider ship models in the context of the history of the ship itself, which represent models, or as historical sources, without paying due attention to the museum’s problem of selecting and describing the model as an object of the museum collection. For the first time, the main approaches to the attribution of ship models and the main features that should be taken into account by the researcher when studying the model are considered.