In fact, groups such as these were notorious for their opulent drinking parties and pomp and circumstance.
See how they form up frantically? Each character is looking somewhere different. Hardly a model of military discipline.
The piece is of a local milia: a civic guard group portrait of a company of able-bodied men who are entrusted to defend the city from any manner of threat. They went by the name ‘The Kloveniersdoelen’.
Arguably the finest artist of the Dutch Golden Age. And arguably his most famous piece too, on display here in the Gallery of Honour in the famed Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.