• Reinhold Metz, El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (p. 147), entre 1983 et 1984. Aquarelle, laque et encre de Chine sur papier 53,5 x 39,5 cm. Lausanne, Collection de l'art brut © Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne ; photo : Claudina Garcia, Atelier de numérisation – Ville de Lausanne
    Reinhold Metz, El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (p. 147), entre 1983 et 1984. Aquarelle, laque et encre de Chine sur papier 53,5 x 39,5 cm. Lausanne, Collection de l'art brut © Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne ; photo : Claudina Garcia, Atelier de numérisation – Ville de Lausanne

Don Quixote


Mucem, J4— Ground floor
| From Wednesday 15 October 2025 to Monday 30 March 2026

Having already honoured Jean Genet, Jean Giono and Gustave Flaubert, the Mucem is continuing its series of literary exhibitions by celebrating a hero born in Spain who has spread throughout the world to the point of becoming a mythical figure: Don Quixote.

In 1605, Miguel de Cervantes invented a character who fancied himself a knight errant in a book in which he was the anti-hero. Like an old man fallen back into his childhood, he plays out the scenarios of his imagination both "for real" and "for laughs". With his faithful Sancho, he delivers oppressed people who have asked for nothing and invisible princesses. One declaims grand, pompous and old-fashioned speeches, the other retorts with litanies of proverbs. The duo engage in a series of parodic battles, while the author mischievously puts fiction and himself in abyss.

Yet four centuries have seen the anxieties of modernity reflected in the facetious or dizzying jolts of this laughter: the Romantic quest for an impossible ideal, metaphysical solitude, the interplay of illusions and disillusionment, and the heroism of failure. On the other hand, the exhibition will have the originality of returning to the comic, turbulent and popular dimensions of the work and its inexhaustible dissemination in the most varied artistic fields and in everyday culture. It will invite us to rediscover the story itself through some of its episodes, in a journey full of variety and surprises.

Deliberately anachronistic - in the image of its hero - the exhibition will feature just over 200 items of various types and periods. Starting with the collections of the Mucem, where Don Quixote features on magic lanterns, prints, advertising cards and packs of cards, the exhibition will also present masterpieces of publishing and art, thanks in particular to an exceptional partnership with the National Library of Spain, and the support of a number of prestigious lenders, both in France and abroad.

Interpretations of the novel by leading artists such as Charles Antoine Coypel, Honoré Daumier, Gustave Doré, Francisco de Goya, Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso and Antonio Saura will be in dialogue with pop songs, films, theatre and puppet props and costumes, comic strips, popular imagery and everyday objects. The novel's subject matter will be put into perspective with the cultures of the Renaissance and the Golden Age, as well as with the novel's contemporary posterity.

Indeed, Cervantes' hero continues to inspire artists today: from Gérard Garouste's gouaches accompanying the Don Quixote published by Diane de Selliers, to Abraham Poincheval's recent performance crossing the Breton countryside in armour, Pilar Albarracín's spectacular and burlesque installation or Cristina Rodero García's photographs sublimating traditional Spanish festivals, the exhibition will show the richness of current views on Don Quixote.

Curated by :   
Aude Fanlo, Head of Research and Teaching Department, Mucem
Hélia Paukner, Heritage Curator, Head of Contemporary Art, Mucem

Scientific Advisor :  
Jean-Raymond Fanlo, professor at the University of Aix-Marseille, specialist in Renaissance literature, translator of Don Quixote (Livre de poche, 2010, Laure Bataillon Classic Translation Prize 2015) and José Manuel Lucia Megias, philologist and writer, professor at the Complutense University of Madrid, specialist in Cervantes and the history of his illustration.