El dos de mayo de 1808 en Madrid (The Second of May 1808)

Francisco Goya

Oil on canvas

Museo del Prado

El dos de mayo de 1808 en Madrid, also known as The Charge of the Mamelukes, is a large-scale oil painting by Francisco Goya depicting the violent street battle between the citizens of Madrid and the Egyptian Mamelukes of the French Imperial Guard during the Dos de Mayo Uprising of May 2, 1808. The composition is deliberately chaotic, with no single focal point, conveying the anarchic brutality of the encounter as Spanish civilians armed with knives clash against a professional occupying force. Goya, the foremost Spanish painter of his era and First Court Painter to the Spanish Crown, completed this work in 1814 following the expulsion of French forces from Spain, as a state-commissioned commemoration of the popular insurrection that ignited the Peninsular War. Together with its companion piece, The Third of May 1808, it stands as one of the most powerful and historically significant anti-war statements in the history of Western art.