Studie voor 'Het Verleden' / Study for 'The Past'

In 1902, Berlage invited Toorop to design tile murals for the Amsterdam exchange building, which would be placed near the entrance.
A few years before, Toorop and Berlage had already cooperated; in 1895 Berlage commissioned Toorop to design large tableaus for the music room of a villa and in 1899 Toorop asked Berlage to design his house 'De Schuur' in Katwijk.
The murals (each measuring circa 200 x 300 cm) were executed at Porceleyne Fles in Delft as 'sectiel' tiles, a novelty product introduced by the factory at the 1900 Paris World Fair.
To avoid the grid of angular tiles, these tiles were cut (hence the product name, derived from the Latin 'secare' - cutting) along the outlines of the image.
After firing, the fragments were put together, resulting in a tile mural comparable to a leaded glass window.
In a letter to art historian G. H. Marius, dated a week before the official opening of the exchange building in 1903, Toorop wrote that he personally supervised the production of the tiles and that he modeled the faces of the figures himself, 'to give them the right expressions.'
In the same letter, Toorop comments on the iconography of the murals, in which he wanted to depict the past, present and future of trade.
The past is represented by trade by barter ('a young female being exchanged for a sword'), with slaves in the background.