The Ratification of the Treaty of Münster

On 15 May 1648, in the town hall of Münster in Westphalia, Spain and the Dutch Republic swore to the peace that ended 80 years of war. Watch the hands. The two Spanish envoys, on the right, swear with their right hands on a Bible, and one of them, the Count of Peñaranda, holds up the Spanish text of the oath. The six Dutch delegates facing them raise their right hands instead, the Protestant way of taking an oath. Around them ter Borch fitted some 77 people onto a copper plate not much wider than half a metre, and more than 20 of them have been named so far. He signed it with the Latin name of the city and the year. In the 19th century the picture hung in Prince Anatole Demidoff's villa at San Donato near Florence. The collector Sir Richard Wallace gave it to the National Gallery in London in 1871, and London has lent it to the Rijksmuseum.