> On this canvas, now part of the Royal Collection, the King is being passed a laurel wreath by his wife, as ‘a symbol of their union and a public statement of tenderness and intimacy.’
I've never heard of the laurel wreath as a symbol of tenderness and intimacy. In Ancient Greece, they were a symbol of skill in athletics or poetry; in Ancient Rome, they were a symbol of victory on the field of battle.
Slavs have mostly dropped the laurel/triumph connection and just use a replica gold-jewels-and-velvet crown. Though the ones I've seen are still engraved with patterns suggesting plants so there's at least an allusion to the older tradition even there.
I don't know what connection a 17th century english royal would have felt towards this tradition but given that period's fascination with antiquity it may have been a common association. I also don't know where the byzantines got the idea, but it feels like one of those pre-christian mediterranean things they adopted. I know laurel crowns were used for all sorts of ceremonies and festivals in greece & rome, not just martial victory. A wedding is a kind of triumph I suppose, it would not surprise me if this is an ancient tradition.
