Algeria: a woman rescuing her child from the French attack on the camp of Emir Abd el-Kader at Taguin. Chalk drawing after H. Vernet.

The camp was called in French "La smala" (from Arabic 'zmala'). It was attacked by French forces under the duc d'Aumale on 16 May 1843. King Louis-Philippe instigated the attack and commissioned a painting of it from Horace Vernet: "Prise de la smalah d'Abd-El-Kader à Taguin. 16 mai 1843", at the Château de Versailles. It is "the largest French painting of the nineteeenth century" (Lee, op. cit., p. 407). The two figures shown here are present in the foreground of the painting by Vernet, left of centre. The site of the attack was later named Z'Malet El Emir Abdelkader after this event