The Massacre of the Innocents

In 1573 Haarlem surrendered to Spanish troops after a siege of seven months, and much of its garrison was put to death. Cornelis van Haarlem signed this huge canvas there 17 years later, in 1590. Its subject is the massacre in Bethlehem, where King Herod, told that a future king of the Jews had been born there, ordered every boy under two to be killed. The picture has long been read against the war with Spain, and it was probably commissioned for Prince Maurits, the young commander of the Dutch army. The Rijksmuseum calls it a nightmare in which one horror follows another. At the lower left a soldier cuts a child's throat, and behind him a woman claws at a soldier's eyes. The killers are naked, and in the distance, outside the town gate, the slaughter goes on.