La Bataille de Taillebourg (esquisse)

This draft by Eugène Delacroix depicts the Battle of Taillebourg. The episode refers to the victory won in 1242 by Louis IX, the future Saint Louis, over Henry III of England during the Saintonge War. The battle, connected with the crossing of the bridge at Taillebourg and with the assertion of Capetian power, became one of the great military episodes associated with the reign of Saint Louis. Created between 1834 and 1835, this preparatory work shows Delacroix’s compositional process for a major subject from French medieval history, in the dramatic and dynamic manner characteristic of Romantic painting.