Harlequin and Pierrot

In 1924 the Paris dealer Paul Guillaume, who sold Derain's work, ordered this painting from him for his own home. It is a large square canvas, 175 centimetres each way, and Guillaume kept it. It can be picked out in a photograph of his flat on the avenue de Messine. Two figures from the old Italian comedy stand against an empty ground. Harlequin wears his suit of coloured diamonds and a two-cornered hat, Pierrot a white costume with a ruff and a black skullcap. Each lifts one knee and plays a guitar, like puppets caught in an endless dance, yet their eyes never meet and both faces stay serious. Derain worked the picture out in many preparatory drawings, down to the small still life that steadies the lower right corner. In Pierrot's face, people later recognised the features of Guillaume himself. The painting was reproduced several times in the dealer's lifetime, and today it hangs at the Orangerie in the room named after his art magazine, Les Arts à Paris.