Thomas Phillips Exhibition
18th Century
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. De voornaamste gevallen van den wonderlyken Don Quichot. Hague, 1746.
Charles Antoine Coypel(1694-1752) achieved artistic success early in his career, gaining admission to the Royal Academy at the age of twenty-one. His great success as an illustrator came with the scenes from Don Quixote which he painted between 1715 and 1720. Twenty-five large engravings based on them were published in 1723-24, and when these were reduced in size (by almost two-thirds) and published more cheaply in 1746 they achieved immense commercial success. In them Coypel depicts a comic Don by emphasising the farcical episodes of the novel. Bernard Picart engraved twelve of the illustrations, including the one shown here.
