Koenraad Brosens: "Don Quixote Fever in European Tapestry"

Charles Coypel’s masterpiece—the focus of the special exhibition Coypel’s Don Quixote Tapestries: Illustrating a Spanish Novel in Eighteenth-Century France—is one of many tapestry sets woven in Europe during this period. By locating the knight errant in the pictorial and decorative possibilities of the medium, as well as in the feverish rivalry characterizing the industry, Brosens addresses the basic question, “Why so many?”