Jan Anthonisz. van Ravesteyn: The officers of the White company (1638)

(Haags Historisch Museum, The Hague, The Netherlands)

Like many other Dutch cities in the 17th century, The Hague also had a civic guard (Dutch= schutterij). In the case of The Hague it had 2 civic guard units - the Saint George civic guard, which had crossbows and would protect the Binnenhof and surounding buildings, and the Saint Sebastian civic guard, which had longbows and would protect the city itself. Thse officers are from the latter civic guard. The Saint Sebastian civic guard had several (first 3 but later 6) companies called 'vendels' in Dutch. Each vendel had about 250-350 men and were named after a color. So you would have the Orange, White, Blue, Green, colombijn (a brown-pink color) and orange-white-blue. Each company was led by a captain, a standard bearer and 6 corporals (each corporal led a squadron or 'rot'). These are the officers of the white company. Depicted on the painting are (from left to right):

- Nicolaas van Beyeren, corporal
- Adriaan van Heyninghen, corporal
- Isaac Snewijns, silkmerchant, captain of the white company
- Olivier van der Faas, standard bearer, after 1636 captain of the white company
- Dirk Keun, corporal
- Pybis Schevel, corporal

Painting from 1638.