# Italian Comedians [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [WATTEAU, Antoine]() - Date: 1701-1750 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 64 x 76 cm ## Commentary Italian Comedians c. 1720 Oil on canvas, 64 x 76 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington One of the most famous of Watteau's paintings, this scenes portrays a troupe of Italian actors, who improvised satirical skits in Paris, lined up as if for a curtain call. The personalities of these players were stock characterizations; the figure in the centre is Pierrot, who was cast as the amiable yet unsuccessful lover who was constantly ridiculed. Despite the animated gestures and flickering light, a certain tender pathos pervades the scenes. One of Watteau's last works, painted shortly before his death at the age of thirty-seven, this canvas was supposedly given to his English doctor in payment of a medical fee. ## Related artworks - [A Halt During the Chase]() - [A Seated Woman]() - [Actors from the Comédie Française]() - [Actors of the Comédie-Française]() - [An Embarrassing Proposal \(detail\)]() - [An Embarrassing Proposal]() - [Back of Woman]() - [Cajoler]() - [Ceres \(Summer\)]() - [Chinese Musician and Chinese Woman]() - [Chinese Woman of Kouei Tchéou]() - [Diana at her Bath]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()