The Afflicted Matron, the Countess Trifaldi, from ‘Don Quixote’ 

Curator: Here we have Robert Smirke's interpretation of a scene from ‘Don Quixote’, titled 'The Afflicted Matron, the Countess Trifaldi', residing here at the Tate. What strikes you first about this composition? Editor: An odd mix of the dramatic and the… well, stagey. Like a play caught mid-act, all gesture and deliberate placement. Curator: Smirke, with his detailed rendering, truly captures the theatricality inherent in Cervantes's narrative. The composition leads the eye across the stage through a subtle interplay of light and shadow. Editor: It feels a little... literal, doesn't it? The figures almost too posed, too consciously arranged. But then again, maybe that's the point. Curator: Perhaps. Smirke invites us to consider not just the story but the artifice of storytelling itself. It’s a painting about performance. Editor: I suppose so. It does spark a sense of that bizarre unreality you only find in stories, but also in a mirror. I quite like it. Curator: Yes, it’s a rich, curious scene indeed.