Don Quixote

In 1867 Corot turned 71 and was made an Officier of the Légion d'honneur after showing at the Paris world's fair. Dealers were taking nearly everything that left his studio. Around that time he painted this canvas, close to two metres tall, and attached to it the most famous name in Spanish literature.

Gustave Doré's illustrated Cervantes had appeared in 1863 and put the knight in front of every reading household in France. Corot kept him at a distance. Alfred Robaut, who catalogued Corot's work after his death, listed this painting as Don Quichotte et Sancho, and the two of them ride a ridge at the far left, small, while the height of the picture goes to one leaning tree and the rocks beneath it.

Literary subjects were rare for him. The museum in Cincinnati, which has owned the picture since 1919, dates it a little earlier than the year usually printed with it, to somewhere between 1865 and 1868.