L’incontro di Luigi XIV e Filippo IV nell’isola dei Fagiani

On 7 June 1659 the kings of France and Spain met on a tiny island in the Bidasoa river, on the border between their two countries, because neither would set foot on the other's soil. They had been at war for the better part of 25 years. To seal the peace, Philip IV of Spain handed over his daughter, Maria Theresa, to marry the young Louis XIV, and the Treaty of the Pyrenees was signed on that neutral scrap of land. This painting records the handover, with the Spanish and French courts facing each other across the divide. It is not a scene painted from life. Laumosnier worked it up later from a grand tapestry design by Charles Le Brun, part of a whole series celebrating the reign of Louis XIV.