Model of the S.S. Johannes Thomsen

The Model of the S.S. Johannes Thomsen is a costly miniature displayed in the Baron’s room. It matters because its packaging, rather than the model itself, supplies Smilla with a concrete investigative lead: a museum brochure identifies the ship as property of the Cryolite Corporation of Denmark, while an address cut from the box points to the law office of Hammer & Ving, whose associate collected the Baron by car.

Appearance and Provenance

The model first registers as an expensive possession. During a conversation over mineral water, Peter draws attention to the ship in the Baron’s room and observes that it looked costly. His comment redirects attention from the display to the object’s provenance: the model had arrived in a box that the Baron later repurposed as a cave.

The box had not been discarded. Peter found the printed brochure inside it and placed the sheet before Smilla. Its front identifies the Arctic Museum and names the S.S. Johannes Thomsen as a ship of the Cryolite Corporation of Denmark, adding that the model is made to a scale of 1:50. The label gives the miniature an institutional and corporate history, but the evidence does not establish when or why the Baron acquired it.

The Box as a Clue

The model’s importance emerges through its separation from its packaging. The brochure remains inside the box after the Baron has turned that box into a cave; Peter retrieves it and brings it to Smilla. The object’s ordinary role as a display piece gives way to the box’s unintended role as a container of information. The ship itself is not shown to cause events; rather, its packaging preserves a clue that would otherwise have stayed out of view.

A second clue is more deliberately extracted. Peter has cut an address out of the cardboard with a knife and sets the piece before Smilla, apparently taking care to avoid mistakes in spelling. The address identifies the law office of Hammer & Ving, on Oster Street near the King’s New Square. Thus the box yields two distinct kinds of information: the brochure identifies the model and its corporate association, while the excised address directs the investigation toward a specific office.

Investigative Consequences

The address gains significance when Peter links the office to the Baron’s movements. He tells Smilla that the man associated with the address was the one who picked up the Baron in his car. The model and its packaging therefore connect the Baron’s room, the Cryolite Corporation of Denmark, Hammer & Ving, and the collection of the Baron by car. The passage establishes this chain as an investigative lead, not as proof of the office’s involvement in any crime.

The exchange also marks Peter’s shift from a largely unspoken presence to an active source of information. He has not usually asked Smilla questions, and the conversation begins with a request; now he produces the brochure and the carefully cut address himself. The model becomes significant through this transfer of evidence: an apparently static possession in the Baron’s room leads, through the attention of Peter and Smilla, toward the network surrounding the Baron.