Introduction José Pérez Ruano (1750-1810) was a Spanish artist born in Córdoba, Spain. He died in 1810, leaving behind a legacy in the genre of trampantojo or engañifa – incredibly realistic tables with messy papers. His expertise in this area earned him an important prize in a Barcelona exhibition for one of his ‘mesas de papeles revueltos’. Four of his works in this genre have been acquired by the junta de Andalucía for the Museo Nac…