12/41 Breitner has painted several pile-driving scenes, one of which hangs in the Stedelijk Museum at Amsterdam. I have seen somewhere the number of piles which support the new Bourse and the Central Station; but I cannot now find them. The Royal Palace stands on 13,659. Erasmus of Rotterdam made merry quite in the manner of an English humorist over Amsterdam's wooden foundations. He twitted the inhabitants with living on the tops of trees, like rooks. |