Lionel Noël Royer French, 1852-1926

Paris, Salon de la Société des Artistes Français, 1907, no. 1396

Original canvas. There are retouches along the upper edge and in all four corners due to frame abrasion. Some craquelure is visible in the sky. There is a sauced in area centrally in the far background of approximately 4 by 10 cm. Some minor retouches in the figures. There is a very small restored hook-shaped tear in the soldier in the lower left corner.
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The above depicted battle was part of the Italian Risorgimento, the movement pushing towards the unification of Italy. Two prominent figures in the unification movement were Victor Emanuel II, the later king of Italy and Guiseppe Garibaldi, an Italian patriot and soldier of the Risorgimento who personally led many of the military campaigns that brought about the formation of a unified Italy.
In 1867 a greater part of Italy had been unified except for the Papal State with its capital Rome. It was then that Garibaldi and his troupes invaded the Papal State and got as far as Mentana, a town at 22 km from Rome.
This is where on 3 November 1867 the above depicted assault of the Vigna Santucci took place during the Battle of Mentana. The 10.000 soldiers of Garibaldi lost the battle from the 3.500 far better trained Zouaves, amongst whom were many Dutch volunteers, in service of Pope Pius IX.
In this painting by Royer, a Zouave himself, we can see the Garibaldists in their red shirts being overpowered by the Zouaves under the command of lieutenant colonel and commandant Baron Charles Athanase de Charette, here seen on horse back. The outcome of the battle is already clear; the red revolutionary flag is laying in the ground and the papal banner flying in the wind.