DON QUIXOTE BRAVING THE LION · Centre for Early Modern Visual Culture

Title: DON QUIXOTE BRAVING THE LION
Period: 1850-1900;
Geographic: Spain; Plains of La Mancha; Europe
Description: Don Quixote meets a lion keeper during his travels and ceases the opportunity to bolster his chivalrous reputation and become the 'knight of the lions' . The lion keeper is frightened by Quixote's preposition to release the lions from their cages and remarks that the lions are very large and very hungry. Quixote is unperturbed by this knowledge and threatens the keeper with his lance, forcing him to open the cages so he can fight the lions. Sufficiently intimidated, the lion keeper opens the lion cage and cowers atop the cage. As Quixote assumes a fighting stance with which to battle, the lion coolly stands up, passively observes its surrounding and shows no interest in escaping the cage or attacking the knight.
Image Creator: George Cruikshank (Engraver)
Type: StillImage; Engraving
Identifier: mta:24761
Language: eng
Source Name: The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha
Parent Collection: 1899 Macmillan
Image: mta_24761_OBJ.jpg
Collection: Don Quixote
Subject: Lions in Literature; Knights and knighthood in art; Don Quixote (Fictitious character) in bookplates; Panza, Sancho (Fictitious character)