3-016-775 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Rotterdam Museum, lately destroyed by fire, 1864. Engraving from a photograph. 'The city of Rotterdam has suffered an irreparable loss by the destruction of its museum in the Schieland Palace, which was burnt down...The Schieland Palace...was erected in 1662...In 1847, a collection of valuable paintings, bequeathed to the city by M. Boymans, was transferred to the halls of the palace to form the nucleus of the costly treasures of art which have now for the most part been destroyed. The collection gradually increased till it numbered about four hundred paintings...Many - it is said a hundred and fifty - of these paintings, as well as some of the valuable prints, were rescued from the fire, though most of them are in a damaged state. In this museum was also a large and unique collection of Japanese porcelain, which, together with several marble statues, was entirely destroyed...The museum was insured for £30,000, a sum far below its real value - which, in fact, no money can represent. It is supposed that the fire was caused by the carelessness of the workmen employed in repairing the upper part of the building. Nothing, however, but the four walls of the Schieland Palace is now standing; all within is a blackened mass of ruins'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.