Wijding van het Bisschoppelijk Paleis, genaamd 'het Rijksmuseum te Amsterdam'

This wood engraving satirizes the consecration of Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum by ridiculing three prominent Catholic figures—Victor de Stuers, Josephus Alberdingk Thijm, and Pierre Cuypers—kneeling before the museum as though it were a religious altar. The artist mocks the fervent Catholicism and cultural nationalism driving the building's design and patronage. Gothic cathedral architecture looms behind crowds of worshippers, visually equating the museum's inauguration with religious ceremony. The print descends from Northern European satirical traditions—the Bilderbogen picture-sheets and German caricature—that merged sharp political commentary with accessible printmaking. By treating secular cultural institutions as objects of religious devotion, the cartoonist exposes the ideological stakes of late-19th-century Dutch nation-building and the tensions between Catholic interests and public patrimony.