Walking stick with a straight handle, anonymous, c. 1795 - c. 1805

cutting, l c.90cm × d c.2cm More details

From 1795 the young and fashionable Incroyables in Paris used a gnarled branch as a walking stick. They nicknamed it the arbre de la liberté: tree of liberty, in reference to the French Revolution (1789). The Netherlands was rechristened the Batavian Republic on 19 January 1795. A liberty tree was raised in Amsterdam on the ‘Plein der Revolutie’, Dam Square. Whether the stick was dubbed the same in the Netherlands is unknown.