Don Quichotte - Histoire de fou, histoire d’en rire

After having honored Jean Genet, Jean Giono and Gustave Flaubert, the Mucem continues its series of literary exhibitions by celebrating a hero born in Spain, who has spread worldwide to the point of becoming a mythical figure: Don Quixote.

In 1605, Miguel de Cervantes invented a character who fancies himself a knight errant in a book of which he is the anti-hero. Like an old man fallen back into childhood, he plays out the scenarios of his imagination both "for real" and "for laughs". With his faithful Sancho, he delivers the oppressed 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 one parodic battle after another, while the author mischievously puts fiction and himself into abysses.


Yet four centuries have deposited the anxieties of modernity in the facetious or vertiginous tremors 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 focus on the comic, turbulent and popular dimensions of the work, as well as its inexhaustible dissemination in a wide variety of artistic fields and 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 pieces of various types and periods. Starting with the Mucem collections, where Don Quixote is featured on magic lanterns, prints, advertising cards and decks of cards, the exhibition will also present editorial and artistic masterpieces, thanks in particular to an exceptional partnership with the National Library of Spain, and the support of numerous prestigious lenders, both in France and abroad. Interpretations of the novel by such benchmark artists as Charles Antoine Coypel, Honoré Daumier, Gustave Doré, Francisco de Goya, Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso and Antonio Saura will be in dialogue with variety songs, cinema, theater 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 Quichotte published by Diane de Selliers, to Abraham Poincheval's recent performance crossing the Breton countryside in armor, 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 Quichotte.
Curated by :
Aude Fanlo, Head of Research and Teaching Department, Mucem
Hélia Paukner, Heritage Curator, Head of Contemporary Art Department, Mucem






To mark the launch of the new exhibition "Don Quichotte. Histoire de fou, histoire d'en rire", on show until March 30, 2026, the Mucem invites you to wander freely - free of charge and with no set itinerary - through the more than 200 works on display.

A musical open house, where fantasy and imagination are invited to go beyond reason!





Scientific Advisory Board:
Jean-Raymond Fanlo, professor at the University of Aix-Marseille, specialist in Renaissance literature, translator of Don Quichotte (Livre de poche, 2010, Prix de traduction Laure Bataillon classique 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.