Pierrot
Artist
Paul Gavarni
(French, 1804 - 1866)
Dateca. 1850
MediumWatercolor and gouache
DimensionsOverall: 12 3/16 × 8 3/16 inches (30.96 × 20.8 cm)
Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust
Object number32-193/10
SignedSigned lower left (within in the shadow): Gavarni
InscribedInscribed at bottom: avec tout ça, lui, il ne s’amuse pas.
On View
Not on viewCollections
Exhibition HistoryParis in the Belle Epoque: People and Places, St. Petersburg [FL] Museum of Fine Arts, March 1–April 6, 1980.
All the World’s a Stage: Theater and Costume, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, January 16–July 11, 2010; February 7-August 5, 2018, no cat., as Pierrot.
Paul Gavarni was a prolific printmaker and watercolorist who often drew upon the world of fashion and theater for his inspiration. This image represents the commedia dell'arte character of Pierrot, the sad clown, in his signature loose white tunic, ruff and large white buttons. In contrast to many representations that highlighted his rich silken costume, this Pierrot has a disheveled appearance and ragged clothing that reference Gavarni's interest in representing scenes of the urban poor. The pithy inscription reads: "Avec tout ça, lui, il ne s'amuse pas." ("With all that going on, he is not having fun.") The character of Pierrot also appears in an image by Thomas Couture,
With Richard Owen, Paris, by September 26–December 1, 1932 [1];
Purchased from Owen, through Harold Woodbury Parsons, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1932.
NOTES:
[1] See letter from Harold Woodbury Parsons, art advisor to NAMA, to J. C. Nichols, NAMA Trustee, September 26, 1932, NAMA curatorial file.
Britany Salsbury, Nineteenth-Century French Drawings at
the Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2023).
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