Charles Coypel

Painting of men and women at a ball
Coypel’s Don Quixote Tapestries: Illustrating a Spanish Novel in Eighteenth-Century France
close up crop of tapestry depicting three women dancing in fancy dresses
Coypel’s Don Quixote: Illustrating A Spanish Novel in Eighteenth-Century France
Link to video of Esther Bell lecture
Esther Bell: "Coypel: Staging Don Quixote"

Born into one of the most powerful dynasties of working artists, Charles Coypel occupied a unique place between the worlds of painting and performance in eighteenth-century France. Bell explores Coypel’s longest running commission, a series of Gobelins tapestries based on Cervantes’s Don Quixote.

Link to video of Patrick Lenaghan lecture
Patrick Lenaghan: "Coypel: Illustrating Don Quixote"

Charles Coypel’s paintings of Cervantes’s Don Quixote mark one of the artist’s triumphs. Examining these works and later illustrations of the novel raises unexpected questions about art and how readers understood the book and looked at these pictures, which not only attest to Coypel’s talent but also evoke the culture of the time.

Link to introductory video for Coypel's Don Quixote Tapestries
Coypel's Don Quixote Tapestries: Illustrating a Spanish Novel in Eighteenth-Century France

Charlotte Vignon, Curator of Decorative Arts, introduces the exhibition Coypel’s Don Quixote Tapestries, Illustrating a Spanish Novel in Eighteenth-Century France, on view at the Frick Collection until May 17, 2015. For more information about this exhibition, please visit www.frick.org/donquixote. Click here for detailed image credits.