One of the earliest depictions of the Russian tricolour appears in a Dutch book on shipbuilding and flags of the late seventeenth century, where it is captioned as the Flag of His Tsarist Majesty of Muscovy

One of the earliest depictions of the Russian tricolour appears in a Dutch book on shipbuilding and flags of the late seventeenth century, where it is captioned as the Flag of His Tsarist Majesty of Muscovy. The book, «The New Dutch Shipbuilding», which contains essential information on the building of ships and an extensive collection of flags, was published in 1695 by the Dutch engraver and publisher Carel Allard.

Alongside the white-blue-red tricolour with a golden double-headed eagle, the book shows two other flags of His Tsarist Majesty of Muscovy: a white-blue-red tricolour crossed by a blue Saint Andrew's cross, and the «Muscovite flag», white and red squares crossed by a blue upright cross.

The flag recorded in the illustration is kept in the Naval Museum in Saint Petersburg and is dated to 1693.

The first depiction of all three flags of the Tsar of Muscovy was printed in 1693 in the French «Cassini Atlas».

The second, enlarged edition of Allard's atlas, published in 1705 in three parts with additional engravings, belonged to the personal library of Peter the Great. In 1709, by Peter's decree, Allard's book was translated into Russian by F. S. Saltykov and issued by the Moscow Printing House under the title «The Flag Book».