Born into a modest family of craftsmen from the Grand Duchy of Baden, Ihly studied painting in Geneva and then in Paris. He lived in Florence for a while before returning to Geneva where he taught drawing from 1887 to 1901. He made a name for himself with the decoration of the pillars of the Palais des Beaux-Arts at the Swiss National Exhibition in 1896, and he painted several decorative panels for the Beau-Rivage Hotel in Geneva. Ihly’s paintings are socially orientated and detail the rural exodus, poverty and the industrial boom at the turn of the century.

Here he paints the transporters of stones from the quarries of Meillerie (France). Called ‘bacounis’ (from French-Provençal dialect) these boatmen – both Swiss and French – unload with wheelbarrows stones which have been extracted from the quarries. The heavy cargoes were transported to Geneva in specially built sailing boats, which could be also be pulled along towpaths. There were about a hundred active men in Meillerie and another two thousand in the quarries. The quarries are still in use today; although stone is no longer extracted, gravel is used for construction.