Duyster's treatment of the subject is meant to be satirical. These soldiers, who are fighting over the distribution of booty, are dressed in elaborate finery entirely unsuited to the battle field.

Willem Duyster was a painter from Amsterdam who specialised in small-scale portraits and genre paintings. Duyster is an adopted surname, a pun on the name of his house 'De Duystere Wereld' (the dark world).