The Siege of Rhenen

On 8 July 1499 troops of the Duke of Cleves stormed Rhenen, a small walled town on the Rhine that belonged to the Bishop of Utrecht. In the foreground soldiers force the Utrecht Gate, others break in through the far gate, and houses are already burning.

The painter cared more for Saint Cunera, the town's own saint, whose tomb stood in its main church, than for the fighting. Two of her miracles are worked into the scene. In 1483 a citizen named Willem Hac, attacked with a knife on his way to church, called on Cunera and was saved. During the looting, two mercenaries digging up the church floor for valuables were buried under a gravestone by the saint herself. That second miracle dominates the picture, and the Rijksmuseum thinks the panel may have been the altarpiece of the Guild of Saint Cunera, which met twice a week at her altar.

The town kept it in its old town hall until 1898, when it went to the Rijksmuseum in exchange for state money toward rebuilding the church tower after a fire. A full-size copy still hangs in Rhenen.