Surrender of the French Army at Saint-Quentin

This painting, a copy of a work by Luca Giordano executed between 1692 and 1693 and held at the Museo del Prado, depicts the surrender of the French army at the Battle of Saint-Quentin on 10 August 1557. This defeat, one of the heaviest of Henry II's reign, saw the army of Constable Anne de Montmorency crushed by the Hispano-Savoyard forces of Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy, resulting in the capture of the constable himself along with several great lords of the kingdom. A leading Neapolitan painter trained under Ribera and Pietro da Cortona, Giordano likely received this commission in the context of the Spanish celebration of a decisive victory by Philip II over France. The work thus bears witness, from a resolutely Spanish perspective, to the scale of the disaster suffered by French arms at Saint-Quentin.