Battle of Somosierra.

Horace Vernet's Battle of Somosierra of 1816 depicts the November 1808 cavalry charge in which Napoleon's Polish Light Horse guard galloped up the narrow mountain pass held by Spanish artillery, cutting down the defenders and opening the road to Madrid. The charge's suicidal bravery became legendary among the Polish and French troops who celebrated it, and Vernet's treatment commemorates the episode with the dynamic energy his battle paintings deployed so effectively. The painting belongs to his early Napoleonic subjects before the July Monarchy commissioned his most ambitious campaigns paintings.

Vernet captures the dramatic mountain terrain and the cavalry charge with his characteristic precision in rendering horses and military action. The vertiginous composition emphasizes the steepness of the pass and the desperate courage of the charge.