SANCHO IS TOSSED IN A BLANKET: Sancho, following Don Quixote's example, has refused to pay the innkeeper, as that is against the tradition of knights-errant and their squires. So the clothmakers of Segovia and the needlemakers of Cordova who chance to be there toss him in a blanket, while Don Quixote sits without on his horse cursing lustily.
The piece is one of a set of illustrations of Don Quixote after David Teniers the Younger. The scene has all the casual and convincing informality and boisterous good spirits for which Teniers' paintings are famous. It quite catches the spirit of the romance which it illustrates. The landscape vista is unusually lovely in color.
David Teniers the Younger (1610-1694) was trained principally under his father, David the Elder, also famous for paintings of peasant episodes. In 1633 he became Master of the Guild of St. Lukes, and thereafter was Dean of the Guild and painter to the governor, Archduke Leopold William, a position which he continued to hold under the next governor, Don Juan of Austria. In 1663 he helped form the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts. He painted innumerable pictures of peasant scenes, many of which have been rendered in tapestry.
47, 48 BRUSSELS, XVIII CENTURY
Wool and Silk.
No. 47:
H. 11 ft.
W. 8 ft. 9 in.
No. 48:
H. 11 ft.
W. 8 ft. 9 in.
Lent by Duveen Brothers.
TWO PEASANT SCENES: In the first (No. 47) a group of peasants has stopped to rest and talk beside a stream that comes tumbling down in broken cascades beneath a high stone bridge. On the hills in the background are farmhouses and the ruins of castles.
In the second (No. 48) a group of peasants sits and stands about under a tree in a meadow, in which cattle and goats wander. In the background is a farmhouse.
These tapestries after Teniers are typical of his illustrations of life among the peasants and of his decorative and romantic yet realistic landscapes. They are in weaving and color of the best quality of examples of this type.
