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Don Quixote and the Dead Mule

after 1864
Not on view

This work, one of many versions of the subject painted by Daumier, illustrates a passage from Don Quixote, the epic Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616). The elderly knight, accompanied by his squire, Sancho Panza, encounters the body of a dead mule, emaciated after long exposure to the elements in a wild landscape. The encounter is one in a series exposing the breadth of human folly, a theme linking Cervantes’s fictional characters with the panoply of modern types who populate much of Daumier’s art.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Don Quixote and the Dead Mule
  • Artist: Honoré Daumier (French, Marseilles 1808–1879 Valmondois)
  • Date: after 1864
  • Medium: Oil on wood
  • Dimensions: 9 3/4 x 18 1/8 in. (24.8 x 46 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1909
  • Object Number: 09.198
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings

More Artwork

More Artwork
The Third-Class Carriage, Honoré Daumier French, Oil on canvas
The Third-Class Carriage
Honoré Daumier
1864
Ceramic Horn, Glazed pottery, French
Ceramic Horn
French
late 18th or early 19th century
Self-Portrait with Two Pupils, Marie Gabrielle Capet (1761–1818) and Marie Marguerite Carraux de Rosemond (1765–1788), Adélaïde Labille-Guiard French, Oil on canvas
Self-Portrait with Two Pupils, Marie Gabrielle Capet (1761–1818) and Marie Marguerite Carraux de Rosemond (1765–1788)
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard
1785
The Connoisseur, Honoré Daumier French, Pen and ink, wash, watercolor, lithographic crayon, and gouache over black chalk on wove paper
The Connoisseur
Honoré Daumier
ca. 1860–65
Édouard Manet, Seated, Holding His Hat, Edgar Degas French, Graphite and black chalk
Édouard Manet, Seated, Holding His Hat
Edgar Degas
Sitter Edouard Manet
ca. 1868

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