Publicatie van het besluit over de vorm van de Nationale vlag en de Nationale vlag voor de Bataafse Marine, 1796 1796

This anonymous print from 1796 in the Netherlands announces the design of the new national flag, and naval jack, for the Batavian Republic. Its rhetoric of ‘Equality, Liberty, Fraternity’ tells us that this is a product of revolution, influenced by the French. But the image creates meaning through visual codes, cultural references, and historical associations. The resolution was made on February 14th 1796, the 'second year of Batavian Freedom'. The text lays out the new flag’s design which is to be the same as the old Holland flag of horizontal red, white, and blue bands. However, the naval jack would have a white rectangle on the red band. Historians of art can reflect on the meaning of art as contingent on social and institutional contexts by researching the archives of the Batavian Republic to understand the tensions between continuity and change in the new state's imagery.