The support consists of five horizontally grained oak planks (35, 27, 28.5, 26 and 26.5 cm), approx. 1.0-1.5 cm thick. The panel is fixed in the original frame. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring of the panels was formed in 1479. The panel could have been ready for use by 1490, but a date in or after 1504 is more likely. The white ground was probably applied when the panel was in the frame, as there is a barbe and the frame covers the unpainted edges. No underdrawing is visible with the naked eye. Infrared reflectography only reveals an underdrawing here and there. It consists of lines and hatchings, mainly in the foreground figures, probably in a wet medium. There are also minor alterations, one being the chinstrap of the soldier immediately to the left of the drawbridge, which was underdrawn but not executed in paint. There are also a few lines visible in the architecture.

Fair. The paint layer is abraded and there is locally lifting but stable paint and discoloured retouching along the joins, edges and over several abraded areas. The thick varnish was applied in the frame and is heavily discoloured and rather matte.

The panel is mounted in a stripped late-medieval oak frame. The cross-section of the profile is simple and shows a wide tenia, an asymmetric ogee followed by a bead along the sight edge (fig. a). The sill has a wide bevelled sight edge (fig. b). The frame has an open rebate and is constructed with mitred mortise and tenon joints secured with dowels. There are traces of red paint and a text with Gothic script in off-white paint on the sill, both of which are probably not original.

? Commissioned by the Guild of St Cunera for the Cunerakerk, Rhenen;¹¹Deelen 1967, p. 93. …; Town Hall, Rhenen;²²Note RMA. donated by the Municipality of Rhenen to the museum, as Dutch school, early 16th century, 1898; on loan to the Museum Het Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, 1999-2007

Object number: SK-A-1727

Credit line: Gift of the Rhenen Council

This painting shows how the town of Rhenen was captured by the army of John II of Cleves on 8 July 1499. The depiction of the town is fairly accurate. Soldiers from the Great Guard, chiefly German mercenaries, are storming the Utrecht Gate in the foreground. The attackers have forced their way into the town through the Berg Gate in the background and are plundering and setting fire to the buildings.⁴⁴Boschma 1961, pp. 91-92; Dijkstra in coll. cat. Utrecht 2003, pp. 66-68, no. 13; see Kemperink 1958 for the Great Guard and a description of the capture of Rhenen. In the right middleground is the Church of St Cunera with one of its walls left open to provide a view of the saint’s tomb with her effigy on it, which was a famous place of pilgrimage. Rhenen was the main centre of veneration of St Cunera, who was one of the 11,000 virgins who accompanied St Ursula on her pilgrimage. They were massacred in Cologne in 337, and Cunera was the only who escaped, being rescued by Radboud, the lord of Rhenen, who took her to his palace. His wife, however, became jealous, and strangled the pious Cunera with the saint’s own scarf. In the top left background of this painting is Cunera Hill with the chapel built over her grave before her bones were moved to the church.⁵⁵See Dijkstra in coll. cat. Utrecht 2003, pp. 66-68, no. 13; Van Buuren 1997; Staal 2000, pp. 164-65, 172-73. St Cunera is also depicted on the right wing of the triptych by the Master of Delft (SK-A-3141).

‘The conquest of Rhenen’ also illustrates two miracles which are described in a 16th-century booklet about the life of St Cunera.⁶⁶Combrink 1988, pp. 24-25. One was an event that took place during the first siege of the town in 1483. A citizen called Willem Hac, who was attacked by an enemy with a knife while on his way to church, called on St Cunera, who saved him, forcing the attacker’s knife to turn around in his hand three times. This is depicted just inside the town walls, where the man’s twisted knife is clearly visible. The other miracle occurred during this capture of Rhenen in 1499. During the looting of the Church of St Cunera, two mercenaries who were digging up the floor in search of valuables were buried under a gravestone by St Cunera herself. The mercenaries were then ordered to stop plundering on hallowed ground, and the saint’s tomb was spared. This is shown to the right of the tomb, where a man is standing in an opened grave.⁷⁷Deelen 1967, p. 91; Dijkstra in coll. cat. Utrecht 2003, p. 66.

There is an inscription on the original frame around the panel that identifies the scene as the capture of Rhenen in 1499, but there are doubts about the authenticity of that date.⁸⁸Van Riemsdijk 1899, p. 10, thought that it was a 17th-century Gothic letter, while Dijkstra in coll. cat. Utrecht 2003, p. 68, note 1, says that there are traces of an earlier inscription under the present one. It was for that reason that Hoogewerff assumed that the panel depicts the earlier capture of the town by Engelbert of Cleves in 1483. However, the fact that the painting shows a miracle that took place in 1499, together with the clear depiction of the town being torched, makes it likely that this is the conquest of 1499.⁹⁹See Hoogewerff I, 1936, pp. 508-09; coll. cat. 1960, pp. 198-99, no. 1538R1; Deelen 1967, p. 91; Combrink 1988, p. 25. So the painting was not made before 1499, and this is confirmed by the dendrochronology, which gives a date of shortly after 1500.¹⁰¹⁰See Technical notes.

It is exceptional that a painting of this period should record such a recent event.¹¹¹¹See Dijkstra in coll. cat. Utrecht 2003, p. 68. A comparable one is the depiction of the St Elizabeth’s Day flood (SK-A-3147-A and SK-A-3147-B), although in that case a far longer interval had elapsed. It is now also clear that both works cannot be attributed to the same artist, as was previously thought.¹²¹²See the biography. For one thing, the underdrawings in both paintings are very different in nature. In contrast to the clear line drawing on the St Elizabeth panels (also including SK-A-3145 and SK-A-3146), which were laid down very freely in paint, there is barely any underdrawing at all in ‘The conquest of Rhenen’. The little that there is contains hatchings, which are strikingly absent on the St Elizabeth panels.

This painting, which is so closely associated with Rhenen, was undoubtedly made for the town, and could have been commissioned by the church or the town authorities. Another possible candidate is the Guild of St Cunera, a religious body which met twice a week at its altar in the church. Since the miracle that spared St Cunera’s shrine is shown in the middle of the painting, it is very possible that the panel was the altarpiece in the church.¹³¹³Deelen 1967, p. 93; see also Dijkstra in coll. cat. Utrecht 2003, p. 68.

‘The conquest of Rhenen’ was kept in the old town hall of Rhenen until it was transferred to the Rijksmuseum in exchange for a state contribution towards the rebuilding of the church tower, which had been destroyed by fire. One reason was that the painting was in ‘a pitiful condition’ and would be better conserved in a ‘state collection’. A full-scale copy made for Rhenen at the time is still in the old town hall there.¹⁴¹⁴Van Riemsdijk 1899, p. 10.
MW

Van Riemsdijk 1899, pp. 11-13; Hoogewerff I, 1936, pp. 508-09; Boschma 1961, p. 91; Deelen 1967; Buijsen 1988; coll. cat. Utrecht 2002, pp. 74-75, with earlier literature; Dijkstra in coll. cat. Utrecht 2003, pp. 66-68, no. 13

1903, p. 8, no. 60 (as Dutch school); 1934, p. 8, no. 60; 1960, p. 198, no. 1538R1 (as Master of Rhenen, sometimes also called the Master of the Elizabeth Panels, The siege of the town Rhenen by Engelbert of Cleves, governor of the bishopric Utrecht, 14th February 1483 ?); 1976, p. 633, no. A 1727 (as Master of the Elizabeth Panels)

M. Wolters, 2010, 'Meester van Rhenen, The conquest of Rhenen by John II of Cleves in 1499, Northern Netherlands, c. 1499 - c. 1525', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200108848