Editing Beeldenstorm (section)

==Artistic losses==
[[File:Le Sac de Lyon par les Réformés - Vers1565.jpg|thumb|300px|The looting of the churches of Lyon by Calvinists in 1562.]]
Rarely was any thought given to the artistic heritage of these cities in 1566, though families were sometimes able to protect the [[church monument]]s of their ancestors, and in [[Delft]] the syndics of the painters' [[Guild of Saint Luke]] were able to rescue the altarpiece by [[Maarten van Heemskerck]], which the guild had commissioned only 15 years earlier.<ref>Montias, 4</ref>

The [[van Eyck]]s' [[Ghent Altarpiece]], then as now famous as a supreme example of [[Early Netherlandish painting]] and already a major tourist attraction, just restored in 1550, was saved by dismantling it and hiding it in the cathedral tower. A first attack on 19 August was deterred by a small number of guards. When a larger attack was made at night two days later the iconoclasts had provided themselves with a tree trunk as a battering ram, and succeeded in breaking through the doors.<ref name="auto1">Charney, 72–73 - a populist account; when he says April he means August, and "The Lamb" refers to the altarpiece. Petegree, 118 has the Beeldenstorm reaching Ghent on 22 August. See also Arnade, 118</ref>
[[File:Sint-Medarduskerk Wervik. Sporen van de beeldenstorm..JPG|thumb|Damaged reliefs in St Medarduskerk, [[Wervik]]]]
[[File:Hugo-de-Groot-Nederlandtsche-jaerboeken MG 0162.tif|thumb|1681 illustration to [[Hugo de Groot]]'s history]]

By then the panels had been removed from the frame and hidden, with the guards, on the narrow spiral staircase up the tower, with a locked door at ground level. They were not detected and the crowd left after destroying what else they could find.<ref name="auto1"/> The panels were then moved to the town hall, and only returned to view in 1569, by which time the elaborate frame had disappeared.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e0X5lErg2tsC&dq=iconoclasm+%22Ghent+altarpiece%22&pg=PA42|title=Early Netherlandish Paintings: Rediscovery, Reception and Research|first1=Bernhard|last1=Ridderbos|first2=Henk Th van|last2=Veen|first3=Anne van|last3=Buren|date=25 March 2018|publisher=Amsterdam University Press|isbn=9789053566145|via=Google Books}}</ref> The artistic and literary losses were elaborately described by [[Marcus van Vaernewyck]] in his journal, preserved in the [[Ghent University Library]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=Van die beroerlicke tijden in die Nederlanden /Marcus Van Vaernewijck[manuscript]|url=https://lib.ugent.be/viewer/archive.ugent.be:0B423D0C-71CF-11E5-BD2B-E4CAD43445F2#?c=&m=&s=&cv=11&xywh=-676,-1,8843,4938|access-date=2020-08-24|website=lib.ugent.be}}</ref>

Despite militia guards, two of the three main churches in [[Leiden]] were attacked; in the [[Pieterskerk, Leiden|Pieterskerk]] the choirbooks and altarpiece by [[Lucas van Leyden]] were preserved.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pieterskerk.com/en/explore/16e-eeuw/1566/|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120910114711/http://www.pieterskerk.com/en/explore/16e-eeuw/1566/|url-status=dead|title=Iconoclasm - Pieterskerk Leiden|date=10 September 2012|archive-date=10 September 2012}}</ref> In the [[Oude Kerk (Amsterdam)|Oude Kerk]] in Amsterdam an altarpiece with a central panel by [[Jan van Scorel]] and side panels painted on both sides by Maarten van Heemskerck was lost.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=46VdllfOUIUC&dq=art+destroyed+in+1566&pg=PA47|title=Northern Renaissance Art, 1400-1600: Sources and Documents|first=Wolfgang|last=Stechow|date=25 March 1966|publisher=Northwestern University Press|isbn=9780810108493|via=Google Books}}</ref> The most important works of several painters, especially those like [[Pieter Aertsen]] who worked in Antwerp,<ref>[[Gustav Friedrich Waagen]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=3JIZAAAAYAAJ&dq=Iconoclasm+1566&pg=PA232]</ref> were all destroyed, leading to a somewhat distorted view of the art history of the period. An altarpiece in [[Culemborg]] had been commissioned in 1557 from the painter Jan Dey, was then destroyed in 1566 and in 1570 recommissioned from Dey, apparently as a copy of the first. However the new work was only in place for five years before it was removed when the town went officially Calvinist.<ref>Jacobs, Lynn F., review of Liesbeth M. Helmus, ''Schilderen in opdracht: Noord-Nederlandse contracten voor altaarstukken 1485–1570''. Utrecht: Centraal Museum, 2010, {{ISBN|978-90-5983-021-9}}. [http://www.hnanews.org/hna/bookreview/current/sixteenth7.html Historians of Netherlandish art] website. accessed 4 March 2011 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110726152205/http://www.hnanews.org/hna/bookreview/current/sixteenth7.html |date=26 July 2011 }}</ref>