...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883

Object number: NG-MC-1125-3

Indonesian pirate flag, white with a rose-like device painted off centre near the hoist, its heart filled with an Arabic text.

This and two other flags (NG-MC-1125-1 and NG-MC-1125-2) were captured from pirates on an island in the Bay of Lobo by the 6-gun screw steamer Reteh in 1862 (originally built as Sprinkhaan, 43 metres long, in Amsterdam in 1858-60 and not mentioned after 1872).¹¹A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 67. The island was thereafter called Jolly Island to commemorate Lieutenant H.L. Jolly who was killed in this action.

J.M. Obreen et al., handwritten inventory list for items 944 to 1431, 1884, manuscript in HNA 476 RMA, inv. no. 1089, no. 1125; J.J. Backer Dircks, De Nederlandsche zeemacht in haar verschillende tijdperken geschetst, 2 vols., The Hague 1890, vol. 2, p. 663; A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 7; M. van den Brandhof, Vlaggen, vaandels en standaarden van het Rijksmuseum. Een geïllustreerde catalogus, Amsterdam 1977, no. 205; H. Stevens (ed.), The Art of Technology: The Navy Model Collection in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam/Wormer 1995, pp. 44-47; A.J. Hoving, Message in a Model: Stories from the Navy Model Room of the Rijksmuseum, Florence, OR 2013, pp. 220-23

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Flag, Indonesian Archipelago, in or before 1862', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20066249