Kriemhild’s Accusation (Kriemhild accuses Gunther and Hager of murdering her husband Siegfried)

The Nibelungenlied fascinated many German Romantics, and in the second half of the 19th century also the Prague painter Emil Lauffer. His is an epic composition, three metres long, the scene taken from Chapter XVII of the epic, in which Kriemhild accuses Gunther and Hagen of having murdered her husband Siegfried, incited by the jealous Brunhild. Stricken by grief Kriemhild calls upon the heavens for judgement, leaving the dead body of her husband, where it fell so as to to reveal, in accordance with ancient custom, the murderers by a stream of blood, which would once more gush out in their presence. Lauffer's painting is based on a picture of the same scene painted in 1835 by Carl Rahl, but reversed as a mirror reflection.