painting (oil): ["Don Quixote in His Study"]

In the centre of the picture sits an old man poring over a large book propped against a stack of others on the table before him. He wears a cap and a yellowing dressing gown, red stockings and dark slippers. He has a small moustache and a goatee beard. He sits in a high backed chair in front of an open window on the right of the picture; the sun streams onto his back. Over the chair is slung a sword or lance. The room is cluttered and dirty looking. On the left a large thin scraggy dog reaches up with its front paws onto the table. In the gloom in the background on the left is a bookcase, a hunting horn and a bed warmer. (Cervantes - Don Quixote) "This painting shares with Quentin Durward at Liège (Cat.138) [NCM 1974-76] a number of sources, such as David Wilkie. Specific origins for the dog have been given as Rubens’ Kermesse and Frans Snyders’ Three Dogs in a Kitchen (Louvre Museum). The most obvious influences are pictures by Rembrandt and Dou that Bonington saw in the Louvre Museum. The colouring, consisting entirely of sepia tones, owes much to the work of the former. The painting, without the dog, was etched by Sangster for Le Keepsake français in 1831. A sketch for this composition once belonged in the collection of Baron Rivet's family." (Cambridge 2002), "The "Don Quixote" can, on internal evidence, be dated around 1827. Though virtually a brown monochrome this is anything but a tedious picture, so admirably does it display this painter's assured and expressive use of paint. That it was the "Don Quixote" lent to this gallery in 1893 by Mrs. Woolner, widow of Thomas Woolner R.A. (1825-1892), the great English collector of Boningtons, is established by the discovery of a fragment of this gallery's 'loan label' adhering to the back of the canvas. The painting is reproduced in the Museums' Journal (June 1959) as is its completely convincing though slightly incomplete pedigree." (Annual Report of the Art Galleries and Museums Committee 1958-1959), Provenance: Possibly Bonington Sale, 1829, Lot 102 bought Triphook; John Smith; Smith Sale, 27 February 1830, bought William Wells; Wells Sale, 20 May 1852, Lot 7, bought William Benoni White; White Sale, Christie’s 23 May 1879, Lot 187, bought Wigzell; possibly S. Herman de Zoete Sale, Christie’s 8 May 1885, Lot 102, bought Carton; Thomas Woolner by 1886; Woolner Sale, Christie’s 18 May 1895, Lot 111, bought Dowdeswell (£85); ca. 1934 bought in Paris by Prof. Paul Citroen, of Wassenaar, Holland; L. de Boer (art dealers), Amsterdam, 1954; Arthur Tooth and Sons, London 1955, from whom purchased 1958.