Daniël Johannes Torman Kerkhoff (Amsterdam 1766-1831)

On 18 January 1795, after months of simmering anti-Orangist unrest inspired by the American and French revolutions, the government of Amsterdam was transferred to the hands of the Batavian Revolutionary Committee. King William V of Orange fled the city on the same evening and the following day the Revolutionary Committee announced their success in Dam Square and promised imminent democratic elections to select the new city councillors. Later on 19 January French troops, who were allied to the revolutionaries, marched into Amsterdam to support the new republic. The present drawing shows the public exhilaration that followed the announcement and commemorates the erection of a Liberty Tree in the centre of the square to celebrate the populace's freedom from the Orangist regime. The Batavian Republic endured until 1806, when Louis Bonaparte took the throne of Holland.

A pupil of P. Pietersz. Barbier, Daniel Kerkhoff was highly regarded by his contemporaries and is now best known for his military scenes, of which examples are in the Boijmans-van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam.