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Associated Press

A French trading ship that sank in the 17th century with treasure on board is being brought back to life in a workshop in Madagascar with every stroke of Rafah Ralahy’s small wood sander.
Ralahy, eyes sparkling behind his glasses, has learned in 30 years as a craftsman at Le Village, a model ship making company, that recreating history in miniature form cannot be rushed.
It will take time to get the shape of the hull just right on this model, to get it just as it was on the roughly 1,000-tonne original.
The ship in question was called the Soleil d’Orient – the Eastern Sun – and it was one of the best in the French East India Company. It sank in 1681 while carrying ambassadors and treasure sent by the King of Siam (now Thailand) to King Louis XIV of France.

Anyone wanting an exact wooden replica from Le Village, albeit a few feet long, can get it for just over US$2,500. That excludes the shipping costs.
“My job is to be as faithful as possible to the plan,” says 50-year-old Ralahy, referring to copies of the ships’ original building plans that Le Village acquires from maritime museums or other sources.
“At each stage we check so that the model we create is identical to the ship designed centuries ago.”
Le Village has been making models of history’s most famous vessels since 1993 and sending them to collectors across the world, some of them eminent.
Prince Albert of Monaco has several models displayed in his palace, says Le Village co-owner Grégory Postel. The Spanish royal family also own Le Village creations. Pope Francis was gifted a model by Madagascar President Andry Rajoelina.
Those royal customers are looking for a model ship “that resembles what their ancestors knew”, says Postel, championing the company’s attention to historical detail.
Some of the high-end models sell for US$10,000. Collectors with as much passion, but less means, can find something for around US$150.
Le Village has dozens of ships available for order, from celebrated to infamous to ill-fated. Some were recently shown at an exhibition in Venice, Italy, including one of the company’s showpieces, the British ship HMS Bounty that is renowned for a mutiny carried out by its disgruntled crew.
A model of perhaps the most famous ship ever, the Titanic, is of course available.

Le Village’s staff of more than two dozen model makers work in nine dusty workshops on the outskirts of Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo. Like Ralahy, many of them have been here for more than 20 years, crafting a reputation for an unusual company.
Madagascar has hardly any shipbuilding tradition despite being the world’s fourth-largest island. Le Village’s story, therefore, is one of endeavour.
It was started by Frenchman Hervé Scrive, who arrived in Madagascar off the east coast of Africa with a passion. He sold the company after 20 years to a family, but it hit choppy waters during the Covid-19 pandemic as Madagascar – already struggling with high levels of poverty – sank into a deep economic recession.
Postel, his wife and another French couple bought it in 2023 with the aim of bringing it out of financial trouble and, hopefully, expanding. Postel says they want to start a woodworking school to spread the craft on the island and create opportunities for others.
They would also like to build a maritime museum of their own.


Ralahy, a house painter as a young man before finding another use for his nimble hands, sands the rough wood that will become the outer hull of the Soleil d’Orient model he has started.
Weeks of intricate work lie ahead for the team of crafters and some models take more than 1,000 hours of labour. But the miniature sails will be hoisted on a new Soleil d’Orient nearly 350 years after tragedy befell the original and she sank with no survivors, sending her treasure to the ocean bottom.
Each model passes through the different workshops and the hands of different specialists. Husbands and wives work together at Le Village, as do other members of the same families. It is a tight-knit team.
In another room, four women who craft and attach the tiny ropes, sails and other finishing touches are working with a sense of urgency on one model.
This one is nearing completion and has already been paid for.
“It’s a race,” says Alexandria Mandimbiherimamisoa as she gets mini flags ready to add to the ship. “We have to send the boat to its buyer in a week.”


Her husband, Tovo-Hery Andrianarivo, also works at Le Village, his fingernails blackened from a misplaced hammer blow or two over the years, an occupational hazard.
He spoke of their collective pride when they see how far some of their models have travelled.
Andrianarivo once watched a documentary on the recreation of a life-size version of the Hermione, an 18th-century frigate that carried French General Lafayette to the American War of Independence. It was rebuilt and launched again in 2014 to much fanfare.
“Behind the museum curator who was speaking, there was our model,” Andrianarivo says. “The feeling I felt that day was incredible.”


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History

Models of history’s most famous ships, from the Titanic to HMS Bounty, perfectly recreated

Visitors attend an exhibition of model ships made by Le Village at the Homo Faber 2024 show in Venice, Italy, on September 13, 2024. The Madagascan company makes exact replicas of some of history’s most famous ships, such as the Titanic and HMS Bounty. Photo: AP

Le Village co-owner Grégory Postel inspects one of the model ship maker’s ships at the company in Antananarivo, Madagascar. Photo: AP

Madagascan women build a model ship at Le Village in Antananarivo, Madagascar. Photo: AP

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A guest carries a Dior Saddle bag at the Dior spring/summer 2019 show in Paris, France. The LVMH-owned label is under the spotlight, together with other luxury brands including Giorgio Armani and Alviero Martini, over the working conditions of migrant workers in their Italian workshops.

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Exterior view of the Z Production workshop, which supplied luxury brand Montblanc, in Campi Bisenzio, just outside Florence in Italy, In July 2024. Photo: Emilio Parodi

Arslan Muhammad (second right) poses with three colleagues and a union official inside the union’s headquarters in Prato, Italy, In July 2024. Photo: Reuters

When an ancient Chinese voyager tried durian, and the rise of Malaysia’s cultivars

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Star Crossed Tattoo’s artists (from left): Takco Siu, Yahel Kfir, Megan Lancaster and Rika Korponay. Lancaster and Korponay are co-owners. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

The interior of Star Crossed Tattoo in Wan Chai, Hong Kong. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

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Yuen moved his studio to Wan Chai, one of the first areas in Hong Kong to have tattoo parlours. Photo: May Tse

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A memorial stone is displayed at the Wolf’s Lair’s storage barracks in memory of the failed assassination attempt of Hitler on July 20, 1944. Photo: Instagram/chr.haack

Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg in 1934. Photo: Ullstein Bild via Getty Images

Lifestyle

Travel & Leisure

Arts & Culture

Model ship making company Le Village in Madagascar acquires ships’ original building plans to ensure its miniatures are exact replicas


Model ship making company Le Village in Madagascar acquires ships’ original building plans to ensure its miniatures are exact replicas.


Africa