In the second half of the 19th century, over 70,000 soldiers of the Royal Dutch East Indies Army set off for the Dutch East Indies. This batch of KNIL soldiers walk across the Koningsbrug in Rotterdam to embark for the journey. The woman with the child by her hand saying goodbye to her husband lends drama to the scene, but Isaac Israels is more concerned with objective representation than with eliciting emotion. saac is the son of Jozef Israëls, one of the most important artists of The Hague School. This art movement was characterised by realistic Dutch landscapes in grey, dark tones. Isaac was only 18 when he painted The Transport of Colonials. He still seems influenced by his father's work in this monumental, dark, detailed painted work.
