Beat to Quarters

I’m working quite a lot with Dutch ships at the moment and I always noticed a small but not exactly invisible detail in the paintings (Strictly speaking even very prominently above the stern ) : the blood red flag.

Battle at Elseneur in the Sound between the Dutch and Swedish fleets, 8 November 1658, by Peter van de Velde, around 1670 (detail below)

After some research I only got the Nazi flag from the second world war, well not really what I was looking for but then I found it - it is the so called Bloedvlag- the blood flag.

Another special work is the painting by Jan Molenaar (1682) in which the Edam shipbuilder Jacob Mathijsz Oosterlingh is proudly portrayed alongside 92 ships, built by him and his family, and here we can see the bloedvlag on the left.

This flag has been hoisted since the beginning of the 17th century during the Eighty Years War on Dutch ships as a signal for certain tactical actions.  It is uncertain that the red color was used because of its visibility, or because it is related to the color of the blood as a sign of a fierce battle. Originally, the blood flag was a red flag depicting an arm armed with a sword, but it can vary.

This type of depiction was also used on other flags but was particularly popular with the Barbary pirates.

This flag was used until the Second World War where it was hoisted as a sign for the opening of the fire, only in the Second World War it became black.

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