In academic painting scenes of paintings had a strict hierarchy. The most significant were considered biblical, historical and mythological. In the Salon, historical paintings usually went off with a bang, and Manet, with his principled orientation towards the official Salon, could not ignore this fact.
True, and turning to history, he always tried to bring it as close as possible to modernity. In other words, he wrote the modernity that was historical. The campaigns of Hannibal Mane were not interested. And interested, for example, the tragedy of the Mexican emperor. Or the American Civil War. Thus, in the film “The Battle Between the Kingsja and Alabama,” he depicts a naval duel of two ships that unfolded near Cherbourg.
“Alabama” was a Confederate ship, aimed to destroy the court of supporters of the alliance with the British anywhere in the ocean. It is known that Manet made a whole series of sketches for a picture devoted to the events of the time of the Paris Commune, but he did not complete this work.