In 1928 Ferdinand Erfmann painted Bar, which features half-naked androgynous figures. Café ’t Mandje, one of the first gay bars in the Netherlands, had opened on Amsterdam’s Zeedijk a year earlier. Did a visit to the bar inspire the painter? Zeedijk was close to the port, maybe that explains the sailor on the left. Before the Second World War this street, with its many bars and nightclubs, was a real hotspot for sailors, sex workers and queer people.