W.H. Lake Price was a painter as well as a photographer. He exhibited several photographs of literary characters, such as Robinson Crusoe and Don Quixote. These parallel reconstructions by painters. Here the model - book in hand - rolls his eyes, looking sharply up and to his left, as a way of indicating Don Quixote's eccentric demeanour. The study is also reminiscent one described by Sir Walter Scott in his novel The Antiquary (1816). The Museum's founding-director Sir Henry Cole saw and disliked such historical costume-piece photographs ('the dramatic Scenes I think failures') but bought The First of September, a still life, by the same photographer.
