Boschbrand (Forest Fire)
Raden Saleh (About 1811 to 1880) · 1849
Not currently on display. UOB Southeast Asia Gallery closed April 2026 to late 2027. Not confirmed whether Boschbrand is shown in the interim Southeast Asia exhibition from October 2026; on_display set to false until checked.
A wall of flame fills the right side of an enormous canvas, and in front of it a whole jungle flees toward the edge of a cliff. A tiger and a lion cower on the rocks, a bull and a buffalo plunge, deer leap into the void, and a lioness turns to face the fire with her cubs. Boschbrand, forest fire in Dutch, is the largest painting Raden Saleh ever made, four metres wide, and it is the most important work in the National Collection. Saleh, a Javanese aristocrat, spent twenty years in Europe learning the grand manner of romantic painting, and this picture, made in 1849 on his return to Java, is his masterpiece in that style.
Look at the theatre of it. The animals are painted with the drama of Delacroix and the precision of the animal painters Saleh studied in Dresden and Paris, and the light of the fire is reflected on wet rock and terrified eyes. The composition drives everything to the lower left, where the ground gives way; the fall is coming. Saleh signed the picture in both Latin and Javanese script, a reminder that he was painting his own island's nature for a European audience, and perhaps also its politics, since the fire has been read as an allegory of colonial rule consuming the land.
Saleh presented the painting to King Willem the Third of the Netherlands in 1850, and it hung for decades in the Dutch royal collection before disappearing into a private house, rolled up and forgotten, until it was rediscovered and restored. Singapore bought it in 2014, and it hung as the opening statement of the Southeast Asia gallery from 2015 until that gallery closed for renovation in April 2026. Check whether it is on view in the interim exhibition of regional works; when it is, allow time to stand in front of it.
Did You Know? The painting was lost for decades, rolled up in a private house, before it was rediscovered and bought for Singapore in 2014.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.