Shortly before Mariano Fortuny concluded the second year of the pension he had received from the Regional Government of Barcelona in 1858 to complete his studies in Rome, that same institution commissioned him, on January 10, 1860, to travel to Morocco as a graphic reporter of the African War. There, Spanish troops were fighting in the northern Maghreb -especially the battalion of Catalan volunteers recruited by their Regional Government and commanded by General Juan Prim y Prats (1814-1870). That commission’s final objective was a series of large paintings to decorate the Boardroom at the Palacio de la Diputación, but it also led Fortuny to discover Africa and the Arab world, which would be determinant in his career. Some of his most beautiful works explore that subject matter, and several of the most exquisite examples are now at the Museo del Prado. In the end, Fortuny only painted one of the works for that initial project: the monumental Battle of Tetuan, which took him several years to complete, cost him considerable heartache and difficulties, and remained unfinished in his studio when he died.

As artistic war correspondent, Fortuny was a direct witness to the Battle of Wad-Ras just a few days after he arrived in Morocco. There, on March 23, 1860, Spanish and Moroccan troops clashed in the valley of the same name, on the road from Tétouan to Tangiers. That was one of the most famous battles of the entire war, as well as the last one. Regular troops commanded by generals Rafael Echagüe and Antonio Ros de Olano, along with Catalan volunteers led by Prim, defeated the Moroccans, forcing them to sue for peace. This culminated in the armistice signed by Muley-al-Abbas and General O’Donnell, which put an end to the war.

During his months in Morocco, Fortuny made innumerable on-the-spot notes and sketches of this and other skirmishes, presenting them to the Regional Government of Barcelona when he returned on June 4, 1860. Shortly thereafter, he returned to Rome and began work on the splendid draft visible here. The battle’s natural setting is an open landscape presented as a markedly horizontal panorama: a large plain by the river where the battle took place. The highly elegant composition presents the clash between the two armies in a manner directly reminiscent of Horace Vernet’s (1786-1863) The Capture of the Smalah of Abd-el-Kader, an enormous mural painted for the palace at Versailles. At the Barcelona Regional Government’s express request, Fortuny stopped at Versailles to see that work on his way back to Rome from his first stay in Africa. Due to the fact that it is a draft, and despite it early date, this painting shows Fortuny’s most vibrant, paint-laden technique, with a pictorial ease that does not neglect the attentive description of the figures, including some of the freshest and most vigorous fragments from his action scenes (Text drawn from Díez, J. L.: El siglo XIX en el Prado, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2007, pp. 290-294).