The Field of the Cloth of Gold, 1520

This panoramic painting, executed around 1545 by an anonymous artist of the English school and held in the British Royal Collection at Hampton Court, depicts the splendour displayed at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, a summit held from 7 to 24 June 1520 between the English castle of Guînes and the French town of Ardres, near Calais. The composition shows the temporary palace and the vast tents of gold brocade erected for the occasion, amid which tournaments, jousts and banquets brought together the courts of Francis I and Henry VIII. This meeting, organised to seal an Anglo-French alliance intended to counterbalance the rising power of Charles V, was conceived as a mutual display of magnificence between two young rival sovereigns. Painted more than two decades after the events, the work reflects the lasting fascination this episode held for the English court's imagination, even though the meeting, for all its splendour, led to no lasting alliance between the two kingdoms.