Image: Flag of the Nguyễn Lords - A.M. Gritzner in his Flaggen u. Banner Landesfarben aller Zivilisierten Staaten der Erde. Nürnberg, 1878. (Taf. 68)

Description: A flag attributed to the Nguyễn Lords (or "Cochin-China") by Europeans.
Title: Flag of the Nguyễn Lords - A.M. Gritzner in his Flaggen u. Banner Landesfarben aller Zivilisierten Staaten der Erde. Nürnberg, 1878. (Taf. 68)
Credit: Armorial of South Vietnam, www.hubert-herald.nl (Source image 1 / Source image 2 / Source image 3 / Source image 4 / Source image 5 / Source image 6). Europe, 18th century. With the legend ‘Vlag van Sina’ - According to early 18th (eighteenth) century flag-charts the flag of the Nguyen lords (Cochinchina) showed a spiral between some mythical beasts. No local and contemporary sources mention this flag. The spiral undoubtedly is a version of the yin-yang symbol which is the emblem of state. - The other symbols are symbols of authority. They are: a bust, a dragon, a phoenix, a snake (python), a fish (?), an ape (?), a crane and a pot of flowers. - These symbols remind the symbols of authority and the five elements of nature as on Qing Emperor’s clothes. - Such symbols, but different, are also on the ‘Nine Dynastic Urns’ in the Forbidden City of Hué, made 1835. - A possible meaning of the flag would be ‘the head of state holding eight authorities’.. From a German (Bavarian) Flag book 1878. (Early German Empire period.) With the legend ‘Cochinchina’. - This flag was still documented in 1878 by A.M. Gritzner in his Flaggen u. Banner Landesfarben aller Zivilisierten Staaten der Erde. Nürnberg, Bavaria, 1878. (Taf. 68). In 1856 the German author Von Hefner thinks in his Die Wappen der Ausserdeutschen Souveräne und Staaten. (Nürnberg, 1856). that the arms of Cochin-China (the territory of the Nguyễn Lords) are identical to the flag being yellow with a bordure idented white and blue (alias a bordure of blue flames). This however is the flag of the empire (Đại Việt), charged with a red disc the flag of the Đại Việt emperor..
Author: Scanned by Hubert de Vries (see title for original author).
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No