Beatrix de Rijke (1421 – 1468), was a Dutch foundling in

Dordrecht Dordrecht (), historically known in English as Dordt (still colloquially used in Dutch, ) or Dort, is a city and municipality in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the province's fifth-largest city after Ro ...

in 1421.

Biography

According to

Mathias Balen Mathias or Matthijs Jansz. Balen (born 1 October 1611 in Dordrecht; died 1691) was a Dutch historian. Biography He first distinguished himself as a poet, but afterwards applied himself to historical researches, and in 1677 published a description ...

in his 1677 ''Description of the city of Dordrecht'', she was a survivor of the

St. Elizabeth's flood (1421) The St. Elizabeth's flood of 1421 was a flooding of the Grote Hollandse Waard, an area in what is now the Netherlands. It takes its name from the feast day of Saint Elisabeth of Hungary which was formerly 19 November. It ranks 20th on the list of ...

. Her wicker cradle was found floating on the water, and besides the baby, it contained a cat. The small cradle with baby and cat are included as one of the details of the 1490 panorama of the flood by the Master of the St Elizabeth Panels, on view at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The subject was romantic enough to be expanded over time. The baby was given the name Beatrix de Rijke, who married Jacob Roerom. She was also called Beatrix de Gelukkige (Beatrix the lucky one). The flood itself, first recording the loss of 18 villages, by 1677 had grown to encompass 72 villages. Today the story of the "cat in the cradle" is told at

Kinderdijk Kinderdijk () is a village in the municipality of Molenlanden, in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located about east of Rotterdam. Kinderdijk is situated in the Alblasserwaard polder at the confluence of the Lek and Noord ...

, near Rotterdam, while the 1490 painting is said to have been donated as an altarpiece by the town of

Wieldrecht Wieldrecht is a small village in the Dutch province of South Holland. It is located about 4 km southwest of the city of Dordrecht, on the Kil River. Wieldrecht was a separate municipality between 1817 and 1857, when it became part of Dub ...

, near Dordrecht.

References

Beatrix de Rijke
in

1001 Vrouwen uit de Nederlandse geschiedenis ''1001 Vrouwen uit de Nederlandse geschiedenis'' is a compilation of 1001 biographies of famous women of the Netherlands spanning roughly 1700 years. Project The book is the result of a research project called the Digital Women's lexicon of the N ...

Kind in een Wiege
in ''Beschryvinge der stad Dordrecht'' on

Google books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...

Two paintings
inspired by this subject by

William Holman Hunt William Holman Hunt (2 April 1827 – 7 September 1910) was an English painter and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His paintings were notable for their great attention to detail, vivid colour, and elaborate symbolism ...

and

Laurence Alma-Tadema Laurence Alma-Tadema (August 1865 – 12 March 1940), born Laurense Tadema, was a British writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who worked in many genres. Early life Alma-Tadema was born in Brussels in 1865. She was the eldest da ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rijke, Beatrix de 1421 births 1468 deaths People from Dordrecht Medieval Dutch women 15th-century women of the Holy Roman Empire People from the county of Holland