Charles Robert Leslie

Sancho Panza in the Apartment of the Duchess

1843–4, exhibited 1844

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

License this image

Not on display

Artist: Charles Robert Leslie 1794–1859
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 1219 x 1524 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Presented by Robert Vernon 1847
Reference: N00402

Display caption

The Romantics prized the Spanish writer, Cervantes, for his celebration of the wisdom of folly in his romance Don Quixote of La Mancha 1605-15. The Don has absurd adventures imitating the deeds of heroes he has read about. He is assisted by his squire, Sancho Panza, who also provides a wry commentary on them.Here Sancho confides his private view of his master to a Duchess: ‘I cannot beat it out of my noddle, but that he is as mad as a march hare.’ This is a second version of a subject Leslie exhibited, to great acclaim, in 1824.

Gallery label, May 2007

Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.

Explore

architecture(41,339)
- features(8,916)
- - column(449)
interiors(4,562)
- domestic(1,823)
- - living room(303)
leisure and pastimes(7,669)
- music and entertainment(2,170)
- - music(918)
literature and fiction(3,157)
- characters(457)
- - Sancho Panza(19)
- literature (not Shakespeare)(2,297)
- - de Cervantes, Miguel, ‘Don Quixote’, 1605-1615(40)
nature(45,215)
- animals: mammals(4,859)
- - dog - non-specific(1,046)
- plants and flowers(2,727)
- - rose(126)
objects(23,378)
- fine arts and music(3,744)
- - sheet music(41)
- furnishings(3,103)
- - chair(929)
  - curtain(257)
  - mirror(243)
people(35,143)
- actions: expressive(2,655)
- - talking(610)
- adults(22,737)
- - man(10,498)
  - woman(9,056)
- ethnicity(4,564)
- - black(807)
- groups(5,207)
- - group(4,270)
society(34,906)
- nationality(18,324)
- - Spanish(151)
work and occupations(14,164)
- domestic(826)
- - nanny(146)
  - servant(149)
- royalty and social rank(1,833)
- - aristocrat(1,359)

You might like

Charles Robert Leslie Sketch for ‘Sancho Panza in the Apartment of the Duchess’

c.1844
Edward Matthew Ward Doctor Johnson in the Ante-Room of the Lord Chesterfield Waiting for an Audience, 1748

1845, exhibited 1848
Edward Matthew Ward The Disgrace of Lord Clarendon, after his Last Interview with the King - Scene at Whitehall Palace, in 1667 (replica)

1846
Charles Robert Leslie Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman

1842
Charles Robert Leslie The Carved Room, Petworth House, Sussex (c1856). Verso: Sketch of a Seated Male Figure in Van Dyck Costume (1844)

c.1856
Charles Landseer The Pillaging of a Jew’s House in the Reign of Richard I

exhibited 1839
Daniel Maclise Scene from ‘Twelfth Night’ (‘Malvolio and the Countess’)

exhibited 1840

On display at Tate Britain part of Walk Through British Art
Charles Robert Leslie Sketch for ‘Christ Rebuking His Disciples by Calling the Little Child’

c.1858
Charles Robert Leslie A Scene from Milton’s ‘Comus’

exhibited 1844
Edward Matthew Ward Scene from ‘David Garrick’

date not known
Charles Robert Leslie Head of Prince Hal

c.1851
Charles Robert Leslie Sketch for ‘Charles II and Lady Bellenden’

c.1837
William Hilton the Younger Rebecca and Abraham’s Servant at the Well

exhibited 1833
George Frederic Watts A Story from Boccaccio

c.1844–7
Gilbert Stuart Newton Yorick and the Grisette

exhibited 1830