Iona Napier
CERTAINLY one of the more baffling attractions that Mijas has to offer is the museum of miniatures.
Assembled by Juan Elegido Millan, a magician better known by his stage name ‘Professor Max’, insists he was forced into collecting miniature works of art due to economic difficulties…and because his house was too small to collect normal size artworks.
His collection includes a version of ‘Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, painted on a grain of rice and a bullfight painted on a lentil.
The collection also includes various sculptures carved into toothpicks and sticks of chalk, and three dried fleas that someone has painstakingly dressed up as a family, complete with father, mother and child.
A large number of the pieces are anonymous, but the undoubted star of the museum is artist David Reyes, 43, from Cordoba.
Reyes visited the museum as an eight-year-old boy, and can now put his name to about half of the artworks in the collection.
Some of his pieces include ‘The Titanic, painted on a grain of rice’, ‘Velazquez’ Las Meninas, painted on a pinhead’, and unbelievably ‘Bullfight, painted on the point of a pin’.
Having belonged to the family of Professor Max from its opening in 1972, the town hall took over ownership in 2012.
All proceeds from the museum now go to AFESOL, a charity founded in 1999 to provide help for the families of people with severe mental illnesses.
