Charles-Joseph Natoire (Nîmes 1700-1777 Castel Gandolfo)

A study in reverse for the maid undressing Don Quixote in Don Quixote undressed by the Duchess’ maids, a tapestry part of a series of ten on the story of Don Quixote commissioned by the financier Pierre Grimond Dufort (1692-1748) and woven by the Beauvais manufacture between 1735 and 1744 (O. Picard Sebastiani, in Don Quichotte vu par un peintre du XVIIIe siècle, exh. cat., Compiègne and Aix-en-Provence, Musée national du château, 1977, pp. 12-5). The tapestry cartoon for Don Quixote undressed by the Duchess’ maids which was exhibited at the 1742 Salon is now missing, but a painted study for it is now in Compiègne (S. Caviglia-Brunel, Charles-Joseph Natoire: 1700-1777, Paris, 2012, no. P. 67, ill.).