The Battle of Hanau

On 19 October 1813 the Emperor Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Leipzig, which was his first decisive military defeat. Lasting three days, the battle was also one of the bloodiest of the Napoleonic Wars and the French army suffered huge casualities. Forced to withdraw west of the Rhine, Napoleon planned to retreat to France. As the French withdrew, they met a force of Austro-Bavarian troops, under the command of Karl Philipp von Wrede, on 30 October at the town of Hanau, near Frankfurt. Wrede's aim was to block Napoleon's line of retreat. Despite their previous heavy losses and having less than half the men and cannons available to Wrede, the French, under the personal command of Napoleon, pushed back Wrede's troops and captured Hanau. This victory gave them access to the main road to Frankfurt, where they arrived on 31 October, just 20 miles from the safety of their rear base at Mainz. The battle was one of Napoleon's final victories before the invasion of France.

This painting is the third one in the group of four battle scenes that Vernet painted for the duc d'Orléans and for which he was paid 10,000 francs. Although the duke did not fight at Hanau, he benefited politically from references to Napoleon and memories of imperial victory. In the picture we see French grenadiers of the Grand Battery, wearing blue uniforms, defend their artillery against a charge by Bavarian cavalry, who are wearing white. The Grand Battery is under the command of General Antoine Drouot, who stands beside a firing canon, to the right of the painting, as a mounted Austrian cavalryman tries to strike him down. On the left, the French Guard cavalry are counter charging. They are led by General Nansouty, who is shown centre-left seated on a chestnut horse with his back towards us.

As in the other pictures in the group, Vernet gives us a panoramic view full of activity that also shows how the battle was fought. He places us on the edge of the forest as Drouot moves his cannons towards the open plain to rebuff the advancing Bavarian troops. Alternating bands of light and shadow lead our eye across the landscape towards the river Kinsig in the distance, which is crossed by a stone bridge. Behind the river, are the bell towers of Hanau. Vernet makes the action of the battle itself more accessible by focusing on individual scenes or episodes in the foreground, each filled with drama and sharp incidental detail - for example, if you look closely, you can see where he has shown the trajectory of a cannon ball as it has clipped some trees on the right. Trees frame the central vista, which contains the action. Smoke that merges with the clouds reinforces this framing effect.

Credit: Bequeathed by Sir John Murray Scott, 1914