The Battle of the Centaurs and Lapiths, from Ovid's Metamorphoses, represents the moment when the Centaurs, drunk at the wedding celebrations of Pirithous and Hippodamia, attempted to carry off the bride and female guests. Theseus intervened, killing many of the Centaurs, and eventually restoring order. The Centaur was often seen to symbolise man's animal nature and the story represented the moral triumph of the divine over the bestial side of man.

Barye's model of Theseus slaying the Centaur was originally designed in 1849 for the Minister of the Interior and was exhibited in plaster at the Salon the following year. A fifty inch version of the model, also cast by Barbedienne, was placed on top of the Barye Memorial, erected in 1894 on the Ile de la Cité, Paris, indicating the importance of this work in the sculptor's oeuvre.