Flemish or Italian school. 16th century. “1536: Franco-Ottoman strategic alliance between the lily and the moon.” Oil on panel. 77,5 x 94,5 cm. Magnificent panel reflecting the Franco-Ottoman alliance, also known as the Franco-Turkish alliance, established in 1536 between the King of France Francis I and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Suleiman I the Magnificent. With the handing over of this ring, this strategic, sometimes tactical, alliance is symbolically sealed as one of France's most important external alliances, particularly influential during the Italian Wars, reaching its climax with the invasion of Corsica around 1553, during the reign of Henry II of France. This was an exceptional, non-ideological pact between a Christian state and a Muslim state, which caused a scandal in the Christian world. Carl Jacob Burckhardt (1947) called it “the sacrilegious union of the lily and the moon”. It lasted intermittently for more than two and a half centuries, until the Napoleonic campaign in Ottoman Egypt in 1798-1801. In an architectural space or frame, the encounter takes place: at the center of the work, two powers that are friendly, in an effective way, giving each other a ring. Under solid architecture made of ashlar stone, with great detail and avoiding monotony as far as possible, the figures meet, full of light and color. The artist, with superb mastery, fills this space with an almost breathable atmosphere, with stories and great expressive force both in movement and in the gestures of feelings depicted through his brush strokes.