€2,600
A rare Dutch Delft blue and white 'earthquake' plate, dated 1692
Dia.: 22 cm
The plate inscribed:
1692
Den 18 Septembe (On 18 September)
wasser een (there was)
aertbeving (an earthquake)
overal (everywhere)
The 1692 Verviers earthquake, also known as the 1692 Ardennes earthquake, occurred in the east of Belgium on 18 September 1692 measuring around 6.2 on the Richter scale. Parish records and historical accounts strongly indicate the earthquake's epicenter was northwest of Verviers, and the event was widely felt across Western Europe in modern-day Belgium, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and France. The largest amount of damage occurred in the northwestern environs of Verviers, then part of the Prince-Bishopric of Liege. Researchers at the Royal Observatory of Belgium have considered this the strongest known earthquake in Western Europe north of the Alps, which occurred as part of a sequence of quakes from the Lower Rhine Graben in September 1692.
The quake was felt more in regions around the Ardennes like the Duchy of Brabant than in places like Brussels or Antwerp. In Roermond, the vaults of the Minderbroederklooster collapsed. A tower in Amsterdam left tilted by the earthquake inspired a woodcut by Simon Fokke, titled "Aardbeeving" or "Earthquake". (link)
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