It may be far-fetched, but IN THE WHALE 1783 (Boschstraat 36; originally St. Amorsplein 14) can be placed in the category of biblical scenes, not because of the caption, but because one can only wonder how else a whale ended up in Maastricht.
It is the image that puts us on the trail of an Old Testament person. This is the prophet Jonas, who is about to be swallowed or spat out by a whale (Jonas 2:10).
He had received a commission from God to go to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire, and to prophesy against this city because of all the injustice that took place there. However, instead of travelling to Nineveh, Jonah fled and boarded a ship that was sailing to Tarsis, just in the opposite direction. The ship ran into a violent storm. Jonah said that it was his fault and that the sailors should throw him into the sea. The storm did indeed calm down. God let Jonah be swallowed by a big fish, which spit him out after three days.
The motif of Jonah and the whale also had symbolic meaning. It was the sign of a safe return of a shipwrecked person or a traveller who was thought to have been lost.
So the stone was removed from St. Amorsplein 14, was stored in the depository and survived well. But it probably got broken into several pieces during transport. Fortunately, the pieces were kept together, and after relocation they were given a lick of paint. However, the fractures do indeed need to be repaired again.
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