1376 - Enrique Atalaya

Enrique Atalaya Don Quijote Oil on panel. 46,5 x 30,5 cm. Signed lower right: ATALAYA. Provenance Private collection, Germany. Exhibitions Große akademische Kunstausstellung, Berlin, 1888 (handwritten on the reverse). The Spain-born artist Enrique Atalaya became best known for his small-scale illustrations of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s chivalric novel "Don Quixote" ("El ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha" – "The Life and Deeds of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha"). In 1889, he took part in the World’s Fair in Paris with five drawings based on the first chapter of "Don Quixote". This painting by the genre painter is dedicated to one of the most famous stories from the novel. Don Quixote, followed by his squire Sancho Panza, charges towards windmills, which he mistakes for multi-armed giants that must be vanquished. On the reverse of the painting, at the bottom edge – presumably in the artist’s own handwriting – are the corresponding lines from Chapter eight of Part one of "Don Quixote": "Y diciendo esto, dio de espuelas a su caballo Rocinante, sin atender a las voces que su escudero Sancho le daba...]"