NB. the exhibition has been rescheduled to run from 3 October 2021 to 8 May 2022

In 1421 the Dutch landscape changed forever. The St. Elizabeth’s Flood flooded the Groote Waard and formed the Biesbosch. Dozens of villages disappeared and their inhabitants sought refuge in Dordrecht.

Among those who fled were the inhabitants of the village of Wieldrecht. Two generations later they commissioned an altarpiece for the Grote Kerk in Dordrecht: a number of painted panels with impressive scenes about the flood.

On the one hand, they show the life of Saint Elizabeth, after whom the flood was named. On the other hand, they depict the Elisabeth Flood itself. The panels are a unique time document from a period in which this type of historical depictions hardly occurred. They are amoung the first non-religious painting in the Netherlands.

On the occasion of 600 years of the Elisabeth Flood, the special Elizabeth panels are back together in Dordrecht, where the Dordrechts Museum presents them in an intimate and atmospheric setting.