This drawing of a Dutch flute is of doubtful authorship and date. The faulty perspective in the waterline and the ineffective rendering of the very difficult curves of the wales is to be expected of the Elder’s early work. Such characteristics, however, are common to most other marine artists of the period, and there is a similarity between this drawing and one of the ‘Dolfijn’ by W. van den Bos in the Scheepvaart Museum, Amsterdam. There is a somewhat similar drawing of the flute ‘Reiger’, dated on the stern ‘1648’ or ‘1649’ in a private collection.

The flute is viewed from the port quarter with a full-length figure of a man holding a cross with a sheep behind him. On the rail above the tafferel, there is a shield supported by two lions with a castle, probably the arms of Middelburg. The tafferel is inscribed in pencil with the date ‘1642’ copied, probably in the Elder’s hand, from the stern of the flute.