Object data
silk and linen
height 318 cm × width 192 cm
anonymous
Fragment of a Flag
Indonesian Archipelago, c. 1750 - c. 1830
Provenance
...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1889
Object number: NG-MC-1889-84-2
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Large fragment of a flag. The flag is a standing rectangle, originally probably with a horizontal bar at the top and the bottom. On the red field some ornaments are strewn: a blue sickle with a yellow six-pointed star, green rosettes and a yellow-green six-pointed star. The hoist is folded back to form a collar for the flagstaff.
The date and origin of this flag cannot be traced with any certainty, but it shares many similarities with the flags captured during the expeditions of 1783-85 under the command of Jacob Pieter van Braam in the Dutch East Indies and depicted in a contemporaneous drawing by Engel Hoogerheyden (1740-1809).1 These flags were subsequently displayed as trophies in the Royal Palace in Amsterdam,2 and according to Pool most of these flags can be identified in the collection of the Nationaal Militair Museum in Soesterberg.3 This flag may have been taken on one of the expeditions during the 1780s to 1830s.
Literature
R. van Luttervelt, Beredeneerde inventarislijst van de verzameling oude vlaggen aanwezig op het Koninklijk Paleis te Amsterdam, (Amsterdam) 1948, photocopy of manuscript in RMA, folder NG-MC-1889-83/85 (vlaggen); M. van den Brandhof, Vlaggen, vaandels en standaarden van het Rijksmuseum. Een geïllustreerde catalogus, Amsterdam 1977, no. 208; M. Pool et al., ‘Vergeten vlaggen. De trofeeën van het eskader-Van Braam in de Indische Archipel, 1784’, Armamentaria 36 (2001), pp. 51-72
Citation
J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Fragment of a Flag, Indonesian Archipelago, c. 1750 - c. 1830', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.245347
(accessed 1 April 2025 03:48:51).Footnotes
- 1 Engel Hoogerheyden, Vlaggenkaart met de 27 vlaggen, veroverd te Toeloe Cattapang in Malakka, 1784. Amsterdam, Het Scheepvaartmuseum, inv. no. S.0585(04).
- 2 R. van Luttervelt, Beredeneerde inventarislijst van de verzameling oude vlaggen aanwezig op het Koninklijk Paleis te Amsterdam, (Amsterdam) 1948, photocopy of manuscript in RMA, folder NG-MC-1889-83/85 (vlaggen).
- 3 M. Pool et al., ‘Vergeten vlaggen. De trofeeën van het eskader-Van Braam in de Indische Archipel, 1784’, Armamentaria 36 (2001), pp. 51-72.