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The Museum of History of the City exposes the preparatory painting Girona's Great Day by Ramon Martí Alsina
The National Museum of Art of Catalonia has yielded in deposit to the Ayuntament of Girona this preparatory painting for the picture Girona's Great Day that incorporates to the permanent room devoted to the Peninsular War.
Girona's Great Day by Ramon Martí Alsina is the largest, albeit unfinished, oil painting in the history of Catalan art, together with Marià Fortuny’s Battle of Tetuan (1862-1864) dating from the same period. The painting is currently on display in the Josep Irla Auditorium in Girona.
Girona's Great Day combines elements of Romanticism and Realism and is one of eleven preliminary paintings made by Martí Alsina, along with many drawings and sketches, in preparation for his large historical depiction of the Peninsular War. The canvas shows General Álvarez de Castro in the centre, visiting the battlefield on 19 September 1809 and surrounded by the defenders of Girona who had successfully repulsed an attack by the French besiegers.