“Kriemhild’s Accusation” — Emil Lauffer, 1879. On display at the National Museum Prague (Trade Fair Palace).

With operatic flourish and impeccable scene-setting — and in full national romantic mode — Lauffer portrays one of the pivot points in the Nibelungenlied.

From A Hatto’s translation:

They vigorously denied their guilt on oath but Kriemhild cut them short. 'Let the man who says he is innocent prove it, let him go up to the bier in sight of all the people and we shall very soon see the truth of it!'

Now it is a great marvel and frequently happens today that whenever a blood-guilty murderer is seen beside the corpse the wounds begin to bleed. This is what happened now, and Hagen stood accused of the deed; for the wounds flowed anew as at the time of Siegfried's murder, so that those who were loudly wailing redoubled their cries of woe.

'I tell you he was killed by robbers,' asserted King Gunther. 'Hagen did not do it.'

'Those robbers are well known to me,' retorted Kriemhild. 'God grant that Siegfried's friends avenge it. Gunther and Hagen, it was you who did the deed!' Siegfried's warriors saw hopes of battle.

'Bear this sorrow with me,’ Kriemhild told them.

And now her brother Gernot and young Giselher arrived beside the bier and loyally mourned with the others. They wept for Kriemhild's husband from the bottom of their hearts. Mass was due to be sung and everywhere people were streaming towards the minster, man, woman, and child. Even those scarce touched by his loss began to weep for Siegfried.

~

From the museum:

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.