“One shudders to imagine what has been lost, and it is likely that major works by leading international as well as British artists will be included in the final tally. But one needs a bit of perspective here: this fire may not be comparable to a world heritage disaster like the flooding of Florence or the sacking of Rome or the grinding of Iraqi archeological sites into gravel by coalition tank-tracks. Unlike Lady Churchill’s burning of Graham Sutherland’s portrait of Winston, or the demolition of Buddhist statues by the Taliban, this, so far as we know, was an accident. Yet there is something horribly ironic in the likelihood that an out-of-control blaze at a nearby paint factory may have caused the damage.”