Amsterdam. Rijksmuseum.

Left: ‘The Yellow Riders’ (1885-86) by George Hendrik Breitner. These were an elite mounted artillery corps – here galloping down the dunes.

Top right: ‘The Patricides, “Each According to Their Own Nature”‘ (1869) by David Bles. “Just as cats instinctively chase mice, so do these children playing war resemble their father, who is in the armed forces. The Bible on the lectern is more in keeping with his wife and the youngest child, who do not join in the fray. With this painting Bles may have meant to show that a harmonious family can include members with different dispositions, in which some children take after their father, and others their mother.”

Bottom right: ‘The Drunken Couple’ (c. 1655 – c. 1665) by Jan Havickszoon Steen. “A man and woman are so drunk that they are unaware they are being robbed. Their foolishness is underscored by the print on the partition. It depicts an owl, considered a stupid creature in the 17th century. After all, it could not see by day, not even with a candle or eyeglasses. The drunken couple is thus just as blind as the owl, a message that survives in the English idiom ‘blind as a bat’.”