Abraham van der Hulst One question that would be nice to answer is why there would be a Dunkirk flag at the stern of a ship in the background of an Abraham van der Hulst portrait. The ship has a lion on the taffrail and seems to have Dutch flags at the mastheads. There is no obvious ship that would be part of the Amsterdam admiralty that would fit. The protraits is said to date from 1655. I had not been familiar with the ragged cross flag of the Spanish Dunkirkers, but I soon learned something about it. I guess that the red cross is meant to be like to crossed sticks or logs. It is derived from the Hapsburg Spanish flag.