Transport of colonial soldiers

In the second half of the 19th century more than 70,000 men shipped out from the Netherlands to serve in the colonial army of the Dutch East Indies. This column of them is crossing the Koningsbrug in Rotterdam, heading for the boats. Locals called that bridge the Four Lions' Bridge, and it stood until 1960. Isaac Israëls was 18 when he painted the scene, on a canvas about three metres wide, keeping the light low and the detail heavy. His father, Jozef Israëls, was one of the leading painters of the Hague School, and you can still feel that dark, sober manner pressing on the son here, a few years before Isaac traded it for quicker, brighter city work. The soldiers carry full kit and move as a mass rather than as individual faces, close to how the crowds on the quay would have watched them go.